Screaming Blue Murder
by Keaalu
Summary: G1-ish. Sometimes, all you need is the right sort of NUDGE to get enemies to work together - as Starscream's trine discover when embroiled in a police investigation back on Cybertron. But just what IS that Blue stuff, anyway?
1. Chapter 1

**Screaming Blue Murder**

**Long Unwieldy Disclaimer(TM):**

This story is a complete labour of love. The author neither claims nor (intentionally) implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any other character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. The story itself is © 2008 A 'Keaalu' Scott, as are the original characters who invited themselves along for the ride along the way, and the idea of "Blue" (all of which she guesses no-one else would want anyway! ;) ) Bla bla bla, etc.

**A/N:**

Keaalu am too wordy.

I guess you could consider this "CSI: Cybertron". ;)

Got some art of my little OCs on my devART (linked in profile, if I remembered).

Short version: I'm trying to be mindful of how the characters should behave, and I'm trying not to be too deliberately crazy-go-nuts out-of-character, but I'm also not so good at sprawling war stories or the whole theme of "giant robots smashing the living daylights out of each other". (Plus, of course, I'm not normally one for writing fanfics, I have enough problems keeping up with the goings-on in my own "pet alien universe".)

Happy to accept constructive crits and the like. Now, to see if I can understand the uploader thing…

--

"_Nemesis, this is Seeker flight three, requesting boarding clearance_."

"_Clearance granted, flight three. By the way, nice job out there today, Angel – you're all over the news again_._ Even Megatron sounded like he was almost at the point of complimenting you, although – between you and me – I think he'd rather take a wrench to his voicebox than actually submit to temptation._"

"_I'd thank you for the compliment if I didn't already know you were being facetious, Rumble_. _Just bring the entrance up, already._"

"_Hehe, all right, don't get your afterburners in a pinch. Elevating docking platform now._"

Low to the waves, the pale Seeker performed one or two lazy circles in the air, until the ocean roiled briefly and the spire of the docking platform finally emerged into dwindling daylight. The amber blush of sinking sun turned the purple into a sickly brown, but the tired mech considered even that unappealing sight the best thing he'd seen all damn day_._ No simpering, pathetic humans, no noisy, un-co-ordinated Autobots, no difficult heavy work, nothing. Just the freedom of the air, a tenderly cool sea-breeze over his nosecone, and now the promise of a little bit of relaxation. He drew another lazy circle for the hell of it before touching lightly down on the open gantry.

_Thank Primus, home at last_. The _Nemesis_ might not have been Cybertron, but the relief 'Angel' felt at being back at base was almost palpable. At long last he could get a bath, get refuelled, and spend a few blissful joors in silent recharge – he was undecided over which of the three options sounded most delicious.

In terms of anatomy, he looked like pretty much every other Seeker of his class – long legs, foot-turbines, obtrusive shoulder vents, upswept wings, bulky chest. In colouration, he was oddly incongruous – mostly white (albeit currently streaked with dirt and grime), with a silver trim on the very edges of his wings, speckles of gold across his pale helm, and calm, crystal blue eyes. It was the humans who had temporarily dubbed him 'Angel', for both the _obvious _and _not-so-obvious_ reasons, and the name had caught on with everyone else, Autobot and Decepticon alike. Angel was quite the mould breaker – a committed Decepticon, the purple emblem proud on his wings, but completely benevolent. No-one, not even the Autobots, knew who he was or where he'd come from, but they seemed to like him, regardless.

"Hey, '_Angel_'," Skywarp greeted, dryly, as the lift from the surface finally came to a halt and disgorged the newcomer. He was lounging just down the corridor, in the doorway to one of the storage garages, square in the pale Seeker's way. "Life in heaven's still so over-rated you have to keep coming back to us in the Pit, huh?"

"The _first _time you said that, it was only vaguely entertaining, Skywarp – now it's just irritating," 'Angel' observed, pithily, his baritone voice descending into a growl. "Frenzy, have you got that solvent ready? I'm beginning to think I'm allergic to gold paint."

"Eh?" the cassette asked, looking up from behind the trolley of cleaners. "I don't think we should be bringin' new chemicals in here without Hook's say-so. What do Lergics have to do with paint, anyway?"

"That was just a subtle hint for you to get a move on."

"Subtle? Voice like yours? _You_ are about as subtle as a _brick_."

"There's nothing wrong with my voice-!"

"Not _now_ there ain't, no!" The kick wasn't particularly well-aimed, but Frenzy still had to skip sideways to avoid a long white scratch up his back. "Eh, watch it, Testy-!"

"Y'know, people are still wondering why you've not considered keeping that vocal mod in place," Skywarp added, examining the racks of paint-thinner and solvent and wondering if any could be press-ganged into service. "Save yourself a lot of stick in the long run."

"Pfft." Angel made a sound close in timbre to that of a retching human, gagged for a moment, then spat a small piece of circuitry out into his palm. "They might have convinced me if having the thing sat on my vocalisers wasn't so painful," he commented, his honey-sweet deep voice reverting instantly to a far more familiar nasal scratch.

"Well, you know, those humans have a saying." Skywarp lifted a finger, as if for emphasis. "No pain, no gain."

"Remind me what my gain was?" Angel/Starscream wondered, and instantly regretted it, knowing the second he'd closed his mouth what the answer would be.

"Well, there'd be plenty of gain for _us_ not hearing your Primusawful screeching around every corner." Skywarp ducked the half-empty canister of paint-thinner that flew past his shoulder vent, grinning at the sound of it clattering across the deck plates and the low _blop blop blop_ as solvent poured to the deck. "Hope that wasn't our last bottle, or you'll be rolling on the deck to get the paint off."

"For Primus sake! Can't you do _anything_ without a running commentary?!"

"Well hello Pot, this is Kettle, I do believe you just called me _black_-"

This time the projectile connected, splitting on impact and cascading solvent all over Skywarp instead of the deck. The dark Seeker just stared for a moment, arms akimbo and dripping quietly, then snickered and snatched for his own bottle. Chucking solvent around would probably not be his least-flammable of ideas, but he could always pull the _didn't start it, lol!_ card if it all went Pitwise.

Starscream intercepted and swatted the dark Seeker's hands away before he could get hold of any of the containers, not really wanting them to blow up the storage garage while they were still in it (again). "When formulating your master plan of me _keeping_ the voice modulator, I don't suppose you considered what it'd be like for _me_, hearing someone else's voice when I speak?" he asked, tiredly, putting himself in between Skywarp and the trolley.

"Psh. After what you've inflicted on us poor sparks down the millennia?" Skywarp grinned, and waved a brush. "I'd have thought it was pure, unadulterated _bliss_."

_I left myself _right_ open for that one._ "Please, Warp. Haven't I suffered enough already today?" he whined, spreading his hands, palm up, pleadingly. "I endured almost _three cycles _of Prime's preaching about how I should join them. I only ask for a few breems of peace and quiet… I promise, you give me a hand, and I'll spare you any further auditory torture."

"Oh, all right, you sour-tempered old scrap-heap," Skywarp acceded, at last. "Let's see if a miraculous transformation will come over you when all that… that _white_ stuff gets washed off you."

"Miraculous transformation into _what_?" Frenzy wondered, making sure he was out of kicking range. He'd hooked a hosepipe and brush into one of the cans of solvent and was waiting for the pair to stop bickering so he could get on. "Grouchy into Clean-and-Grouchy?"

"That was a promise I'll only honour if you two shut up and actually help me get this paint off." If the 'bath' aspect was going this badly already, Starscream imagined his eagerly-anticipated 'rest' and 'refuel' would probably end up getting scuttled too. _Why did I __ever__ repeat that request for help to Skywarp? A brush on a stick would have been more useful._

It had been close to a lunar month, Earth time, since Megatron had shoehorned/piledrivered his Second-in-command into the unwilling role of "Benevolent Decepticon". It was a role which called for an individual so sickly saccharine it would have fouled up even an Autobot's fuel lines for a month, and Starscream hated it with a passion exceeded solely by his determination to do a good job of it, just to annoy Megatron.

…surprisingly, it seemed to actually be _working_. While the "Benevolent Decepticon" kept the humans distracted with eye-gougingly noble feats of self-sacrifice and heroic rescues – feats to which the mud-crawling little human insects responded in the most beautifully gullible manner – the _real_ Decepticons sneaked around in the shadows and swiped what they wanted, unchallenged and unnoticed. The human public was – rightly so – completely confused by it all. Even the Autobots themselves were struggling to rally to an appropriate response, most struggling to work out where 'Angel' had come from and who he was, and a few of them apparently completely taken in by him.

In spite of his endless bitching, and in spite of the hated paint-job, even Starscream was finding it hard to maintain his usual outrage when things were going so beautifully _in their favour_, for once. Sure, they weren't making any _enormous_ leaps forwards, but they were keeping the Autobots one step behind them and actually making a little headway of their own. And the energon they manage to sneak clean out from under Autobot noses was plentiful.

The most major drawback – because Starscream thought he could have quite enjoyed basking in all that freely-given adoration – was the Primus-awful disguise he had to wear, because no Autobot would have fallen for it without it. _Starscream gone good? Don't be ridiculous! _The paint was polymer-based, so it applied easily, dried quickly, and remained supple instead of flaking off and clogging joints, but it didn't make it any less _annoying_. For someone who throve on the acquisition of power and influence, being forced to defer that well-earned respect onto an illusory character who didn't even deserve to exist in the first place was almost physically painful. And Megatron knew it. And Starscream knew Megatron knew it.

The specialised paint that hid his crimson eyes had – until today – been a particular irritation. It had taken Hook weeks to get his "prismatic crystal masking" even _translucent_, let alone strong enough to mask vivid red entirely into a sedate blue, but he point blank refused to allow the scientifically-minded Seeker to help, which Starscream found almost as irritating as being forced into the role of "guinea pig". _Almost_. Being Hook's test subject was a painful (and more than occasionally humiliating) experience.

The glued-on smile that was usually part of his disguise had been entirely genuine once Hook had _finally_ announced the formula was perfect. No longer did he have to endure the crippling side effects of staring out of optics coated in badly aligned prisms – the destabilising double-vision had cleared, he was no longer blinded by glare from even the smallest lights, and – joy of joys – he could see in the dark again.

…it still all had to be washed off, though.

"Ugh." As ever, solvent vapours were upsetting his system diagnostics. "If I never have to don this stupid getup ever again, it'll be too soon."

"Megatron wanted another two runs before the end of the month," Skywarp reminded him, using a brush to loosen the more stubborn traces of white from his wingmate's shoulder vents. "So we get to paint you up in silly colours at least twice more."

"See, that's the benefits behind being Second in Command, you get to _delegate_ with impunity. You and TC are _more_ than overdue for doing your fair share of the work. Besides, the humans will only get suspicious if I'm never around. I'm surprised the Autobots haven't twigged, yet," the slowly reappearing Starscream smirked at Skywarp's look of disgust. "What do you know, Skywarp, looks like you just got elected to get the honour of the white paint next time."

Skywarp muttered something unintelligible, and Frenzy grinned.

"You may have a fight on your hands, Starscream," the cassette observed.

"I don't believe I invited your commentary," Starscream glared and lifted one foot, directing the white-painted sole at him. "_Get on with it_."

"You're a braver 'Con than the rest of 'em if you trust _him_ not to foul things up, anyway," Frenzy went on, ignoring his commander's snarling. He'd connected up a series of pressure hoses to a conveniently-positioned tap, gave the controls a gentle tweaking, then (daringly) offered one of the water-guns to Skywarp.

A couple of seconds work from the high-pressure jet of water began to reveal spots and speckles of a familiar red torso, blue hands. Most of the paint sluiced off easily, loosened by the solvent and a bit of firm brushing, and now the high-pressure jet of water rinsed the rest away.

"Hnnh…" Starscream was fighting against himself, trying to deny how _good_ it felt to have all that revolting paint sluicing away from his chassis, but he had already dimmed his optics and slouched against a wall for support. "Careful where you, ah-… where you point that thing," he snapped, trying to save face but failing dismally. It was more like an enthusiastic massage than the usual damply uninteresting trip through the wash-racks, and it was impossible to resist the urge to just turn ever so slightly so the stream cut across the tender spots in his wings, the sensitive mechanisms just under the surface of his dark throat-

Frenzy hooted a laugh and gave him a quick spritz across the face, startling him awake. "Ain't supposed to be enjoying it," he scolded, waving the pressure hose and squirting a curtain of water across the deck, giving Skywarp a sly soaking in the process.

Skywarp was quick to retaliate. What was a pleasant massage to the larger Decepticon was a bodily assault on the small cassette – it worked just as effectively as physically kicking the little pain-in-the-aft, crashing him across the deck and into a wall.

"-underpowered overclocked pit-spawned walking scrap-heap of a-…" Frenzy was still spewing abuse in Skywarp's direction when he finally untangled himself and rejoined the two Seekers. "_That_ wasn't fair."

"Well, _I_ didn't ask for a bath, _either_," Skywarp thumbed his nose at the smaller mech.

Frenzy's immediate response was to direct a needle-fine jet into one of the more sensitive chinks in the flier's armour.

Skywarp gave a yipe and leaped out of the way as if stung. "Why, you-!"

"_Hey_, Sparklings," came the scratchy interruption. "I'm over _here_."

Two pressure hoses turned full force on his faceplate.

It took a good breem or so for Starscream to finally stop spluttering water out of his fuel intakes. "That was _totally_ uncalled for-!" he snapped. "Do it again and I'll-"

"Uh, Starscream?"

The voice was puzzled, softer than his wingmate's usual catcalls. That alone attracted the Air Commander's immediate attention. "What?"

Skywarp had a funny, studious little frown on his face. "Not all this paint's washing off."

"What do you mean, not washing off…?"

0o0o0o0

Just outside the repair bay door, Hook stood and listened to the ruction within, smiling knowingly. He'd seen the two Seekers come barrelling down the corridor a breem or two earlier, as though Optimus Prime himself were shooting at their heels, and right on cue skid through the doorway, almost tangling wings in the process and leaving a trail of paint-transfers and stained water droplets in their wake.

"There's got to be some replacement optic crystals around here somewhere-!" Over the crashing of boxes being hastily rifled through, Starscream's painful nasal shrilling was unmistakable. "It's all that slagging Hook's fault, damn him. He's _sabotaged_ me."

"Well maybe we just ran out! Maybe you should, I don't know, stop making Megatron _shoot_ you, and we'd still have a few left?" And there was Skywarp, making his usual unhelpful commentary. Hook winced at a crash and a curse, although it was directed more at whatever had been broken than Skywarp's pained cussing. "Why in the Pit would _Hook _want to sabotage you, anyway? You're his best customer, to start with! And you didn't just threaten _him_ with playing Prime's-long-lost-cousin-in-Seeker-form."

"I don't know _why_, and I don't really _care_! I just know that _this_," pause, demonstration, "is _sabotage_. For _starters_, one does not _accidentally_ usethe enemy's colours in repairs-" His voice was scratching its way up through the octaves. "Now help me find those crystals before Megatron finds out."

Hook smiled, privately, and turned away.

"Megatron? This is Hook. You asked to be notified when-… yes. Yes, he has… No, I made sure all of _those_ were securely stored away where _no_ Seeker would find them… Of course, Mighty Megatron. I know my role in this. I await your next instructions with interest."

0o0o0o0

The very instant he'd closed the channel to Hook, Megatron had opened the shipwide intercom and 'requested' (in a tone of voice that brooked absolutely no argument) all senior officers to the main control room.

_The trap is baited and set. Now, to see who wanders in, my little Seekers._ The warlord relaxed back into his seat, and waited, smiling privately.

Successful or not, he'd begun to wish he'd never dreamed up this plan. Even at the very best of times, Starscream's ego had been a fraction or two too big to comfortably cohabit with Megatron's, and right now he'd got big-headed enough to be unbearable. Physical altercation shrank him enough to whine out apologies and ingratiate himself back into Megatron's favour, but he rarely stayed small and humble for long, any more. The days where a strong, single backhand _whack_ across the faceplates put paid to treachery and backstabbing for more than an orn were long past. Cowing his Air Commander took far more imaginative punishments.

What was worse, the other two were growing mutinous as well – not just the dithering Thundercracker, who always needed a 'friendly' reminder of where his allegiances lay, but now even loyal Skywarp had begun to side with Starscream every now and then. Now and then, frag, it was becoming a regular occurrence. Slagging their ringleader used to intimidated the other two into obedience for a while, but now Skywarp had developed the nasty habit of needing to join Starscream in the medbay afterwards, for getting in the warlord's face about the way he was treating their commander.

It wasn't as if the Coneheads didn't make their own powerplays, but theirs was usually more to-the-point, easier to spot and easier to counter, and often done by one without the knowledge of the other two. The Seekers tended to be more like grains of sand in sensitive joint-spaces – persistent irritations that were usually quite hard to get rid of. _Should never have let them bunk so closely together. Should have split them into new teams the second I noticed it_. But they were formidable in the air, and splitting the trine apart would have been counterproductive – and probably increased their rebelliousness.

Skywarp and Starscream were last to arrive, as Megatron had anticipated – after all, it _was_ a fair way from the repair bay to the command deck. For now, he maintained his watchful silence; there'd be plenty of time for the yelling and screaming of insults later, even if most of it would probably come from the same overly-vocal red-and-white source, and he preferred to keep his ears in good working condition for as long as possible. The pair had entered the room together, dickering over something inane as usual, and quickly involved a long-suffering Thundercracker in whatever their pointless diatribe was about. They stood around and quietly exchanged irritated noises for a while, their hiked-up shoulders and quivering wings speaking volumes about their annoyance. Megatron didn't bother trying to listen in – he'd only get half the story, as there'd be large chunks of invective being slewed silently over their private communicators as well as the verbal assault they were dealing on each others' audio receptors.

Megatron smiled, privately. He had a more than sneaking suspicion about what it was that had vexed the little trine, and the silly face-mask Starscream was wearing only served to reinforce the idea. Not unlike Soundwave's visor, the crimson material hid his eyes altogether – just not the compressed little line of anger that formed his mouth, more was the pity. He tapped his fingertips together and scrutinised his second in command, for a short time, until a badly-hidden elbow-to-the-cockpit from Skywarp alerted Starscream to the fact his superior's eyes were on him and he finally turned to look up. There was a flicker – just a flicker – of nervous hesitation in his manner, but then the familiar old arms-folded chin-up sneering hostility was back.

_Good, good. All would seem to be going to plan. Jumped-up overblown little Pit-spawn might get his just desserts, for once._

"Is there a problem, Starscream?" Megatron asked, at last, now he had his attention, and drew a little line in the air in front of his own face, to indicate the visor.

The chattering rabble had gone quiet at the sound of the master's voice, as if hoping for a confrontation, and the Air Commander's words were loud in the still air. "No problem at all, Mighty Megatron." To his credit, Starscream's reply was smooth as buttered silk, which only confirmed he was hiding something. "Just a little damage. You called us away for this, ah… _vitally important meeting_… before I could get it repaired."

"We've all seen a little battle-damage before, Starscream," Megatron looked back to his console display, feigning boredom. "Take the stupid mask off."

"Of course, sir." It wasn't lost upon him that in spite of the verbal agreement, the Air Commander just pulled a face and kept his arms folded, defiantly.

"Um, begging pardon, sir, but… why _are_ we here, Megatron…?" A wary voice piped up from the back of the room. Sounded like one of Soundwave's cassettes.

"Well, I _was_ going to congratulate you all on a job done unexpectedly well!" the warlord smiled. "Energon recovery is up, and we even have a small surplus! And everyone else is still completely in the dark. The Autobots are completely rudderless. They haven't foiled so much as a single raid, or intercepted a single shipment." His smile broadened, but it wasn't a happy smile. "Upon reviewing the tapes, however, I had begun to notice some odd behaviours from some of you. Hence, this meeting is no longer just a congratulations for work done well, but also a little bit of an investigation, on my part. I am _hoping_ to get to the bottom of the abnormalities."

Megatron looked back at Starscream, and the Seeker knew instinctively that when he said 'some of you', Megatron meant 'you, Air Commander'. He felt his insides immediately begin twisting into protective configurations, shields locking in place over sensitive conduits.

"Speaking of odd behaviour, didn't I just tell you to take that mask off, Starscream?" Megatron went on.

"I don't see why it's so important," Starscream planted his hands at his hips and puffed himself up, but Megatron was experienced enough in his Second's bluster to know when his arrogance was just there to hide something.

"What makes it important is the fact that I, your commander, told you to do it. Or are you having trouble remembering where you stand in the hierarchy? Again?"

"Oh, pssh. Can't you just get to the point?"

"My sentiment entirely."

Megatron's next move was unexpected, and Starscream didn't quite dodge back out of the way of the descending hand in time. The blow clipped the side of his face and sent the flimsy crystal faceguard flying.

The assembled Decepticons all took one single step back.

Red optics met blue ones.


	2. Chapter 2

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter 2**

**Disclaimer:** No ownership of characters is claimed or implied, etc etc.

**A/N:** Many grateful thanks to those who have read and reviewed and watched and suchlike. :) I hope to live up to anticipation.

And uuunhh this bit came out long. Sorry all. It WAS going to be part of chapter one, so I bet you're all glad I didn't post it_ then_.

* * *

"Well well. What have we here." Although judging by Megatron's tone of voice, he hardly considered it to be much of a revelation. "Somebody _likes_ his little Autobot disguise."

"It's not _my_ fault," Starscream was quick to jump to his own defence and absolve himself of blame. He pointed at the nearby Constructicons, irritably. "Hook sabotaged me." He winced inwardly at the puerile tone his voice had taken. _Please, teacher, that bully drew on my homework._

"You have evidence to back up this accusation, Air Commander?"

"Who else would it have been?" Starscream flung his arms wide. "_I_ would hardly have elected to put _blue_ optics in! And it would have been pretty hard to do it _to myself_ when I _can't see to do it without them_!"

"Hook?" Megatron smiled at his co-conspirator. "What is your input into all of this?"

The Constructicon had his head tipped slightly back, nose high in disgust, looking like there was some sort of foul vapour hanging at chest level. "Given that he's so capable of sabotaging himself, why, pray tell, would I waste my time bothering to interfere with _that_ noisy, uncultured little _ingrate_?"

"_Noisy, uncultured little __ingrate_?!"

In the background, the Air Commander's two wingmates exchanged long-suffering glances and – trying not to draw too much attention to themselves – moved a step or two towards the back of the room, allowing the Coneheads to jostle forwards into their space. The closer they were to the door, the better. Whether he was trying to cause problems or not, Starscream could usually be counted on to generate the verbal equivalent of a thermonuclear meltdown, and neither Skywarp nor Thundercracker relished the idea of being caught in the fallout. One Seeker was as good as another, if it all went to the Pit and things degenerated into a free-for-all.

"No, I don't think it was Hook. I wonder if it was maybe your new Autobot friends, helping you on your way to, ah, heh… personal salvation." Megatron allowed the contempt to _drip_ from his words. "Don't think I've not noticed you and Optimus Prime out there on our subtle new battlefield – anyone would think you were already best friends."

Starscream was almost _vibrating_ in anger, he was shaking so hard. "I don't exactly have a lot of choice in the matter, seeing as you seem to have forced us into such close proximity-!" he spat, thrusting an arm. He knew the situation would have been a lot less volatile if he'd developed an appropriate leash for his vocaliser, but 'filtering' had never been his forte. "If I was working for them, now, why in all Primus' holy names would I be back here to _slum it_ with you lot?!"

"Oh, I can think of a few reasons. To be their little spy in the nest, perhaps?"

"If that were the case, don't you think we'd have stopped _winning_? And how is it that I suddenly got from just being your pet _traitor_ to an outright unforgivable enemy _spy_?!" Starscream gave a little incredulous laugh. "Oh _mighty leader_, you're starting to jump at shadows! Not content with the _real_ attempts on your life, you're inventing your own conspiracies to go on in the background-! Perhaps that's just the proof I need that you need replacing, with someone a little more _mentally_ and _psychiatrically_ stable!"

"Now now. Why so hostile, Starscream? This is nothing worth fighting over. Just a little chat between commanding officers." Megatron smirked. "What exactly is it that upset you so grievously? The fact you couldn't find the _red_ version of the masking paint? As I hear from Hook that you and _an associate-_"

In the background, Skywarp sensed Megatron's attention upon him, and shrank a little more behind Thundercracker.

"-were making quite a mess in the repair bay, looking for something. Tell me, what was it?"

Starscream turned to face the Constructicon who had attracted his earlier indignation. "I take it all back, Hook. _You _didn't sabotage me," he accepted, then stabbed a finger back in Megatron's direction. "_He_ did. Because _he_ can't stand the fact that we've actually done _better_ in a _month_ with a _fake Autobot_ leading the offensive than we've done for a full three stellar cycles with _him_ in command!"

The abrupt silence was so cloying it felt like the air had been replaced by syrup.

The corner of Megatron's eye _twitched_, his smile entirely _too_ fixed.

"Oh, no witty comeback for that one, _mighty leader_?" Starscream moved to accentuate the upper hand he almost had. "Is the truth really that much harder to put a _spin _on?"

The blow came out of nowhere – Megatron might be bulky, but he was quick with it. One instant, Starscream had the upper hand, the next instant and the upper hand was descending incredibly rapidly towards his face.

Static exploded through his vision as the blow connected. Starscream reeled away, catching himself with difficulty against the wall, before his feet went out from under him altogether. Underneath the flare of pain in his cheek, his diagnostics reported more than a dozen new hairline fractures in the substructure, and something felt awkward about his mouth. He yawned his jaw to check the articulation, and the joint on the right side popped noisily back into place. _Great, that's probably going to be loose for __weeks__ now._ He sank to his knees, cupping his palm protectively over the injury, and seethed silently.

Megatron's smug grin was doubly infuriating. "Lightweight," he sneered down on him. "_This_ is why you will never lead. You lack the iron will to stand by your own decisions."

_How dare you boil all this down to one single event? _Anger flared up like pure white solar heat. _These last few dozen orns I have put up with everything you could throw at me, Megatron. I have put up with the ridiculous disguise, I have endured working alongside Autobots without shooting them even __once__, I have carried out your orders to the very best of my ability, and I have worked harder than I __ever__ have before on this mudball world. And now you seek to cut me down, to disparage my hard work, to slander me in the eyes of my fellow Decepticons just because I did a __good job__?! _Starscream gathered his feet under himself, waiting for his opportunity, every motor primed, every actuator tensed, every last fibre of his being coiled like a tight-wound spring. His optics were thin, glittering chips of white heat. _I am __not__ going to go down without fighting. Not this time. _

Imagining his underling to be suitably chastised for now, the warlord – stupidly – turned his head away, which was just the opportunity Starscream had been waiting for. He twisted like an eel and plunged back into the offensive. True to form, he opted not to go for a full-frontal assault, leaping instead for Megatron's back while it was turned. There was a satisfying _oof!_ of surprise as their bodies made contact, the tyrant staggering forwards under the new weight on his shoulders.

"_Don't you DARE turn your back on me!!_" the flier shrieked, flailing hands clawing at Megatron's face and leaving a flurry of bright paint transfers from his blue fingers across the pale surface. "_This is NOT over until __I__ say it is!_"

Megatron roared in fury and tried to throw the red banshee off his back, but for once his Second had an unusual tenacity and clung on – and he could hear the pain seep into the warlord's wordless bellows. His optics were probably one of the few sensitive spots left on his war-hardened body, and the Seeker focussed his attention onto them – if he could dig them clean out of his face, then _fantastic_, especially if they had no replacement red crystals left. _Ha._ _Mighty Megatron, warlord of the Autobots. See how YOU damn well like it!_ The sharp edge of his fingertips found the seam around the left eye and dug at it-

Megatron caught one flailing blue arm firmly around the wrist, and squeezed more than hard enough to buckle the metal under his grip – when the gale of howling insults from behind him became shrieks of unexpected hurt, and he sensed his attacker lose his focus, he dropped his shoulder and yanked on the arm, throwing Starscream clean over his head and into the wall.

"Once again you push me _juust_ too far, Starscream," he hissed, grimly, watching the Seeker flail his upside-down limbs until he finally slumped down sideways and could at least attempt to stagger upright.

There was the familiar ultrasonic whistle of relays charging, coils heating, and the air suddenly stank of ozone. _Oh slag it, not again-! _Starscream barely had time for a hastily spluttered _"nowaitIdidn'-!"_ and to throw up a hand in a _stop_ gesture before a lilac-hot splash of flame spat from the muzzle of his superior's cannon.

In terms of _force_, the impact was more like being caught in a sharp wind than a physical blow, or maybe flying through a patch of turbulence – the main difference was that sharp winds rarely _hurt_ like this did. Several billion ultraheated subatomic particles tore through the gap between them, and sliced a neat round core out of his left wing as easily as a white-hot knife through a stick of butter. There was a millisecond of nothing… then every sensor nodule simultaneously overloaded and the pain crashed into his central processors.

A white-hot flare of sun-coloured pain jangled through him, and his knees buckled, unwilling to support him in the face of overwhelming sensory data. A sympathetic ache had already set up in his opposite wing. He bit back an expletive and cycled air rapidly through his systems, pumping coolant frantically through overheating systems. Had to chill the burn margin, stop the slow smouldering melt, that'd take the edge off it-

_Slagging Megatron, why always my Primus-damn wings?_ Megatron _knew_ how sensitive the wings were – remaining airborne took more than big engines and dumb luck, and a flight-capable mech's wings possessed the most densely packed sensor grid known on any Cybertronian. The one saving grace was that while being shot was far more _destructive_ than a physical blow, it – obscenely – often hurt _less_, even in his wings. Such a comprehensive destruction of the sensor mesh meant there was nothing left _to_ hurt. After the brief flare of agony at the initial destruction, now all he could feel was the painful corona of broken nerves at the burn margins, and that phantom echo on the other side of his body. The superheated plasma had taken a bite out of his left wing, obliterating all but the left "ear" on the Decepticon emblem.

"Now where were we," Megatron hissed, moving closer. "I believe you were saying something about it not being over until you said so, _Mighty Starscream_. Would you like to say the words _now_, or perhaps wait until _later_, when you have made your point clear?"

Starscream felt a tiny flicker of amused satisfaction at seeing all the blue scrapings he'd left across Megatron's more-than-deserving face but couldn't savour his small victory. He scrambled back to his unsteady feet, not wanting to be quite so defenceless and spread out over the deck, because that fusion cannon was still singing sweet and hot, and promising more pain-

But with the wall already pressed snug to his wings, Starscream had nowhere to go. He turned his face away, helplessly, felt the still-hot curve of the fusion cannon as it caressed the underside of his chin. He knew from frequent experience that the diameter of the weapon's oversized muzzle was just large enough that Megatron could cover his entire faceplate with it, if he wanted to. The warlord had never _fired _the weapon from such a position, yet, because the red Seeker usually buckled under the pressure and degenerated into a blubbing, whimpering mess on the floor before he felt the need to, but staring down into the fuming coils and white-hot plasma diodes inside – and knowing it would be several moments of exquisite agony before one's central processor completely vaporised, if the weapon were fired – was no small punishment in itself.

"You don't deserve to wear our proud insignia," Megatron oiled, softly, nudging the weapon harder against the flier's throat in a motion that bordered on tender. "I've always suspected your ways went deeper than mere treachery and over-ambition for a long time, now. Now I see my proof, in living colour in front of me." Another of those predatory smiles ghosted over his face. "Tell me, what is it they offered you that _I_ could not give you?"

Starscream swallowed the urge to make a quip about _anything_ the Autobots promised would be better than what _Megatron_ promised, but decided it'd be far too incriminating. "They haven't offered me anything."

"No cosy life back at the Ark for sabotaging the _Nemesis_, hmm?" Another nudge from the weapon. "What _was_ it you and _Prime_ were discussing so earnestly today?"

"He doesn't know that was me-!" _He's trying to catch me out,_ Starscream knew. _But I can't see his game-_ "Prime thinks that the white one is a newcomer. They're too dense to imagine one of us wearing a new paintjob-"

"Of course, I only have your words for that, Starscream."

"What more do you need? Or do you think I could happily work alongside Prime and his endless moralising?! Primus alive, Megatron, do you have to deactivate your whole brain to have enough energy to power your cannon?!"

_Wrong thing to say again_, Starscream scolded himself, as the nudge turned into a hard_ shove_ and narrowly missed rupturing a fuel line.

"Perhaps I need to make that ridiculous nickname the humans afforded you a little more literal," Megatron hissed, angling his weapon up and watching the way his underling's blue hands skated uselessly along its surface, trying to point it anywhere other than his helm. "You _do_ know what an angel is, don't you?"

Fate obviously still had its uses for the Air Commander, as it intervened to save his life. Patient, dutiful Shockwave had received the latest shipment of energon, and wanted to report in. The chirping alert on the communications terminal drew the warlord's attention, and he straightened, irritably, looking over to the supercomputer to the side of the room. "Inopportune timing as always, Shockwave."

While Megatron's back was turned, Starscream seized his chance. He awoke from his humiliated stupor, shoved on his superior's arm-cannon and overbalanced him into Soundwave, then bolted, leaping clean over the table at the centre of the room and hitting the ground already running. He crashed through Rumble and ducked out of the way of Scavenger's ponderous grab, and was gone.

Ramjet and Thrust were already making for the exit. "We can catch him for you, mighty Megatron-!"

Megatron's next words were unexpected. "No, let the idiot run," he instructed, straightening and pushing Soundwave's steadying hands away. "I want to see where he goes. Keep an eye on him, but don't approach him. If he goes running to the Autobots, I'll have all the proof of his stupidity that I need."

On the main screen, Shockwave's expressionless 'face' still manage to convey his puzzlement, his head canting delicately to one side as he examined his superior. "Why do you have blue paint on your face, sir?"

"Seeker issues, as you might have guessed," Megatron waved the concerns away. "The shipment arrived safely?"

"Yes, Megatron. All two hundred and fifty cubes were received, and have been sent to storage, as instructed. No breakages, no intercepts, no thefts."

"And how much of it have _you_ personally sold?" Megatron smiled, knowingly.

There was a flicker in the single optic. "Megatron, how can you possibly suspect_-_"

"We always have a mismatch between your figures, Shockwave. Please, don't _you_ start taking me for a fool."

On the viewer, Shockwave bowed his head, contritely.

"I just hope you got a good price for it. I shouldn't like to think my most loyal officer sold his integrity for the price of undervalued energon."

"Yes sir, an excellent price. In fact, with energon in such short supply, you could probably safely call it 'extortion'," Shockwave looked up, at last, and was reassured to see a faint smirk on his commander's face at the idea. "I regret that I did not ask permission, but sometimes I have to obtain supplies to maintain the facility in good working order, and this is the only way I have to do so."

"Provided it's for equally important matters, and you have no other options, you have my blessing to continue to do so," Megatron allowed, graciously. "I imagine you'll use your habitual prudence."

"Of course, sir."

"Excellent. One last thing, before you get back to work. You will possibly be having another unexpected visitor very shortly, in the shape of my _former_ Air Commander," Megatron pulled a face. "Be aware that he does not have my authorisation. Allow him to leave, and make an effort to keep tabs on where he goes, but if he comes back, you have my approval to shoot him."

Another of those head-tilted looks, but Shockwave rapidly put two and two together and inclined his head in agreement. Unannounced arrival plus all the paint scrapings must mean one of those little 'hiccups' in the hierarchy had occurred. Again. "Of course, sir. It would be a pleasure." His lack of a conventional face did nothing to disguise the smile in his words.

"Heh. I thought you might be of that opinion. Keep up the good work. Megatron out."

The rabble had finally got bored and begun to disperse, by the time Megatron turned away from the terminal. The Constructicons had vanished altogether, Rumble and Frenzy had got called away for monitor duty, and Thrust and Ramjet had been replaced by Dirge, who looked like he was getting all the gossip off the two Seekers.

"Skywarp?" Megatron barked, and the dark seeker jumped, as if he'd physically jabbed him in the wings. _Up to something, no doubt_. "Get over here."

"Um-… yes, Mighty Megatron?" Skywarp advanced, warily, hoping _now _wasn't one of those times that the warlord was angry enough to consider all three of the trine as co-conspirators and equal targets. His expression was unreadable, right now, and Skywarp felt like keeping out of grabbing distance. Just in case. That cannon was still hot, after all. There'd be no warning if Megatron felt like scrubbing the insignia off _his_ wings, too.

"I hope we're not going to have any problems with you and Thundercracker, now."

"Nosir, no problems."

"You speak honestly for the pair of you?"

"Yes sir. Absolutely."

"Hm. I'll reserve judgement for now."

Skywarp waited for Megatron to continue, and fidgeted, uncomfortably. It was usually about now Megatron would snap the reluctant command to go and find Starscream and drag his worthless aft to the repair bay, and let that teach _all_ of them a lesson in what would happen if they disobeyed him, but… nothing. Megatron's attention had moved on to bigger things, energon supply and flow, columns of figures scrolling up the screens. Perhaps he'd just forgotten, Skywarp hoped. "Er, when did you want us to go find Starscream, sir?" he prompted.

"I don't believe I asked you to," the warlord didn't even look away from his number-crunching. "You and Thundercracker can consider yourselves just a pair, from now on. Fight between yourselves for who gets to be commander."

Skywarp found he could only stare, for a moment. "…sir?"

"Your former commander more than outstayed his welcome in our ranks. He is hereby outcast and exiled. You and Thundercracker are free to recruit a third into your squadron, if you choose," a brief smile. "If you can find anyone else who will tolerate _your_ stupidity and _your wingmate's_ intolerable irresolution."

Still no movement from the Seeker.

At last, Megatron looked up, and his optics glittered in irritation. "I'm sure the lower levels could do with a thorough scrubbing clean, if you have nothing better to do."

"Um, er, of course, mighty Megatron. I'll go and relay the news to Thundercracker. Hail Cybertron!" Skywarp saluted, stiffly, and fled.

It took a while for the room to finally empty and fall silent. Only when the very last of his followers had left did Megatron abandon his pretence of industrious work, and rise from his seat. Starscream's little paroxysm had left blurry patches in his vision, and he was irritable because of it.

He slipped silently away from the control room, and ambled his way down the corridor towards the repair bay. At least he could be confident that Starscream wouldn't be there, for once. Not only was another shouting match not high on his agenda, he also didn't want it to get back to his former Second that he'd actually needed a visit to the medical suite because of him. The fewer people who knew, the better, and Hook could usually be counted on for his discretion.

Right now, the crane was the sole occupant of the large room, and looked like he'd been anticipating his superior's arrival, waiting patiently by the side of a table with an array of solvents and polishing cloths already laid out. Megatron grunted a half-hearted acknowledgement, and took his seat without needing to be asked.

"If I might be so bold," Hook enquired, picking up a cloth and starting to work at the blue-tinted scrapes in Megatron's armour. "_Was_ that the result you were hoping for?"

The tyrant just grunted, to start with. "Somewhat," he accepted, at last. "I should have _preferred_ him to be his usual weak-willed self and have blubbed out all his plans before I had to raise my hand too far, but I still have a fair answer. All I need is for him to go running to his new allies, and I have my excuse to smelt him down into an ornament next time I see him."

"It could just be a coincidence. He seemed fairly adamant of his innocence."

"Tch. He's _always_ 'adamant of his innocence', regardless of how deep he's been involved in anything, and if you'd seen the air-brained idiot acting in his new capacity on the battlefield, lately, you'd suspect him, too," Megatron growled, waiting patiently while Hook gradually polished the blue scrapings out of his optics. "He's a treacherous little _eel_, and you're an idiot like the rest of them if you actually _believe_ his over-dramatised deceit," he pulled a face. "I can cope with his in-house power-plays, because I know he won't get far before someone sells him out, but this is harder to deal with."

"And the Autobot connection?"

"He's been getting altogether too close to them, lately, and I want to know what he's playing at. Why do you think I asked you to switch the crystals out last time he was in for repairs?" Megatron hissed in pain as cleaning fluid seeped through a gap in his armour, and shoved Hook roughly backwards. "Be more careful with that!"

Hook was used to his patients being un-co-operative; he waited until Megatron finished growling, then resumed his work. "Something with little real meaning, but that might trigger him to think he's been rumbled, as it were," he guessed the reasons for Megatron's bizarre instructions. "So… if he's been having even the smallest thoughts of defection…"

The leader smirked and filled in the hanging implications. "This should be just the poke he needs to show where his true allegiance lies."

Neither Decepticon noticed the soft _slap_ as air rushed to fill the Seeker-sized gap in spacetime, as their unnoticed eavesdropper teleported hastily away to relay what he'd found out.

0o0o0o0o0

Thundercracker, reluctant to be drawn into another of Skywarp's crazy schemes, had retired back to the cabin he shared with his wingmate – he didn't rank highly enough to get his own suite, like Starscream, but then the company was (occasionally) nice. It was usually something of a cosy mess, although most of the mess on _his_ side was spillover from _Skywarp_'s side, and he'd soon drifted into a comfortable doze in front of the news-feed. Human news was almost always dull – politicians being prosecuted for lying under oath, companies being prosecuted for treating their workers badly, celebrities with Unicron-sized egos making excuses for why they had been caught cheating on their spouse, and lots and lots of rubbish about the various monarchies. Always sent him into recharge-

"TC? TC, _TC_, _TC_!" Purple hands were waving frantically in front of his optics.

Thundercracker startled awake. "What? What?" He leaped to his feet and almost fell through the vidscreen. "How long was I asleep? Is there an emergency? Are we being attacked?!"

"Of course there's an emergency, TC!" Skywarp was all but hopping in impatience. "We've gotta go find Screamer. Megatron set him up."

Thundercracker flickered his optics in a blink, arms dangling by his sides. "…that's it?"

"Isn't that _enough_?! Come _on_!" Skywarp grabbed for Thundercracker's hands, planning on tugging him along, but the blue Seeker hastily pulled them out of grabbing range. Skywarp pouted.

"Just-… just wait a second. We can't just go chasing after him and mollycoddling him whenever he has a Megatron-induced tantrum." Thundercracker folded his arms to keep his hands out of reach. "And I don't even know what you're talking about, Warp. Start again, and use little words, all right?"

"The blue optics. Megatron told Hook to do it – they were _both_ in on it! They tricked him and he's gone and we've got to go fetch him _back_. Better? Come on-"

"Oh, lay off, Warp. He'll be back and whining again all on his own, in an orn or two," Thundercracker turned back to the computer, unimpressed. "Just let things blow over and we'll get back to normal. Megatron will jinx his own success like he always does, Screamer will come back with a whole new rash of the I-told-you-sos, they'll yell at each other and stomp around for a day or two, then someone will come up with another hare-brained plan, and someone will screw it up. Because this is what always happens, Warp. Remember? You usually help out with the 'screwing up' part."

"It's bigger than just one of their normal arguments, TC. Megatron got Hook to switch Screamer's lenses last time he was in for surgery," Skywarp insisted. "If he can mask red into blue, I bet he just reversed the prismatics to mask the blue into red. Last time he went out, all they did was wash the red off." He threw his hands up in the air, already backing towards the door. "It could be _me_ they trick, next time, now that I'm the boss! We need our 'fall guy' back!"

"And this is the pair of us being honest to Megatron that we're trustworthy and not going to cause him any problems, is it? Because I _swear_ I heard that sentiment come from your vocaliser not a cycle ago."

"My dearest TC, need I remind you what we both are? Deception is the name of the game."

"I hope that's going to be your excuse when Megatron gets hold of us and tries to run us through a recycling mill, because I will _pay_ to watch you try to wriggle out of it," Thundercracker followed his wingmate anyway, although he himself was unsure if it was to argue with him, help him, or just keep him out of Megatron's line of fire.

0o0o0o0o0

"_Megatron here. What did you want, Astrotrain?_"

"I kept an eye on them like you instructed. They've gone."

"_Hmm, they have? Unexpectedly quickly, too. I certainly would never have had Skywarp down for such a quick exit, he seemed to be by far the most resolute of the three. Give them a few cycles to redeem themselves, but if they're not back by sunrise, local time, you have my leave to begin to reset command codes_."

"All of them, sir?"

"_All of them. Frequencies, subspace bands, private channels, communications arrays, protocols, passwords, codes, ciphers. If they have a personal code for it, you may overwrite it. Understood?_"

"Heh, as you instruct, Mighty Megatron. All of it."

0o0o0o0o0

The current guard for the space bridge was a young, bored-looking silver-grey groundling, who had probably been stuck there for half a dozen more shifts than he should have been. He saluted half-heartedly at seeing his superiors approaching, but didn't get up or even take his feet down off the control console.

"Who was the last one to use the space bridge?" If the youth wasn't going to show proper respect, Thundercracker didn't feel inclined to waste any time on needless pleasantries either.

"I've only seen Screamer here lately, sirs, a couple of cycles ago," the groundling replied, boredly. "Said he had important business on Cybertron, but I didn't get the memo about it. Figured it was command business, didn't ask any questions."

It took him a moment, but at last the groundling noticed that both Seekers had visibly rankled at the use of their wingmate's nickname. Catcalling was all well and good among one's peers, but for the lower ranks to take it up too? Unacceptable. An icy chill had settled across both aerial warriors – their heads had gone back, haughty sneers in place, wings tight, weapons primed.

"So, soldier. Do you have any inappropriate nicknames for the rest of us, too?" Skywarp asked, coolly, looking back from the space bridge. "I'd be interested to hear what you call _me,_ behind my back."

The groundling backed off a step and felt his pump lurch. "Uhhh, no sir. It-… it just slipped out," he hunched his shoulders and tried to look small.

"If you value your functionality, you'll make sure nothing _else_ 'just slips out'," Thundercracker growled, moving to input commands on the terminal and making a point of brushing the crumbs of dirt away from it. "Especially around Starscream. He may not take it so well as we did."

"Of course, sirs. Please, I meant nothing by it-"

Thundercracker gave him a disgusted look. "Stop grovelling," he instructed, witheringly. "I expect behaviour more befitting a Decepticon officer and less like a lost sparkling when we return, is that understood?"

"Of course-… that is, yes, sir!" the groundling offered a crisp salute, watching the two Seekers enter the main circle - then pulled a face at the departing backs.

The sky tore open in a coruscating circle of light, the portal sucking up first nothing but dust and grit, but then the power increased slightly and pulled both officers into its maw as well, and they were gone.

The groundling pulled a face and put his feet back up on the control panel. He had far more important things to be doing, like getting some extra recharging in, but it looked like he wasn't even going to get the luxury of doing _that_. After a breem, the communications alert chimed into his attention.

"_Now_ what?" he snarked, not even opening his eyes.

"_Is that how you greet __all__ your superiors, guard_?" came the amused response, and the guard promptly fell halfway off his chair.

"M-Megatron! Sir!" He leaped to attention and saluted automatically, even though the viewscreen wasn't on. "Hail Cybertron!"

"_Have those two winged idiots made their appearance yet_?" the tyrant sounded bored.

"Um-… sir?" There were only two individuals in the past few Earth days that the soldier could think of who could have been labelled 'winged idiots', but he suddenly felt reticent to just agree with the description. If he confirmed to Megatron that they'd arrived, would he just be agreeing they _were_ winged idiots? What if this was just to catch him out? And what if it got back to Thundercracker?! Ohh he was going to be in a whole _world_ of pain if _Skywarp_ found out he'd called him-

"_Are you going to answer me, soldier_?" The bored tone had been replaced by an acerbic snarl.

"Um, that is, er, I'm not sure who you're talking about, sir," the soldier gabbed, hastily.

"_Thundercracker. And. Skywarp. Have you. Seen them_."

"Yes!" He felt like he was on safer ground, now. No calling his superiors idiots. "They passed through the space bridge a few breems ago."

"_Annd… you thought you'd just let them waltz through without my authorisation because_…?"

"They… they didn't have your permission-…" _Oh Primus. He was for the high jump now. He'd not asked for the information, and they'd not volunteered it, and he'd just assumed that – like usual – it was official business. _

"_Am I going to have to repeat everything__I say, because I am going to be very annoyed__ if this continues_!"

"I'm sorry, sir, I just, I was surprised, that is-… yes sir. I thought they had permission. Starscream said _he_ did, and I thought they were following him." The guard waited for the storm to break over him.

"_Hmph._" Thankfully, no storm seemed to be forthcoming. "_You will notify me the very instant __when__ and __if__ they return. Is that understood_?"

"Yes, Mighty Megatron!"

"_If you fail me, you will have cleaning duties for the next vorn. Is that __also__ understood_?"

"Yes, Mighty Megatron!"

"_Good. Be sure that it is. Megatron out._"

The groundling sighed in relief. _Skated out of _that_ one by the gloss on his skidplate. _Now, to get back to important business.

He put his feet back up, and dropped back into recharge.

0o0o0o0o0

"Starscream? This is Skywarp, please respond."

Skywarp was beginning to suspect Thundercracker had been right and that this hadn't been one of his better ideas. They'd been flying in a steadily-widening spiral for a good few cycles, repeating the same message, and if their missing wingmate was here, he was either not hearing them, or just plain ignoring them. Either was plausible.

He was about to give up and try new avenues of research when at last he got his reply. "_Skywarp_?" Starscream sounded surprised to hear his voice. "_What are you doing here_?"

Skywarp pounced on the voice. "We came to find you."

"_So…_ _Thundercracker's with you_?"

"Yeah, that's generally what 'we' is taken to mean."

There was a pause. "_Megatron sent you_?"

Skywarp hesitated. "Not in so many words, no."

The silence at the other end of the communicator was deafening. Skywarp felt the urge to gab out something incriminating, just to fill it, when Starscream finally spoke again. "_So you mutinied_?"

"…nnnot in so many words, no..."

"_But you disobeyed orders, elected to follow a traitor instead of your commander, and abandoned ship_?" It was hard to tell Starscream's mood, right now – he was being deceptively pleasant of tone. He could have been pleased they'd done it, or honoured they'd elected to follow him, or murderously angry and determined not to show it.

"Uhm-… a hand, TC?" Skywarp pleaded, glancing at his silent wingmate.

"Ah-ah, this was _your _master plan, remember?" Thundercracker replied, at last. "_You_ explain it, because I sure as Primus can't."

"Hey! _You_ agreed with me!-"

"No, I _followed_ you-"

"_Co-ordinates_," came the curt instruction, and a little _ping_ of nonverbal global positioning data. "_Disused warehouse on the dock. We'll talk here._"

Starscream was waiting just outside, watching as their flight-path curved gently into an elegant final approach. His wing had an ugly silver patch on it – enough to temporarily cover the hole and keep him airborne, but by no means a long-term repair – but he looked in good shape otherwise.

It was a fact _not_ lost upon the pair that their commander did _not_ look best pleased to see them, as they transformed a moment or two before touchdown. He had his hands on his hips, a dirty little scowl on his face, and his incorrectly-coloured eyes were chips of pale blue murder. "All right. Answers! What in _all Primus' holy names_ are you two idiots playing at?" he demanded, the second they were close enough to hear.

"Nice to see you too, Screamer," Skywarp made a face, following his commander into the darkened interior of the derelict warehouse. "We were trying to help you."

"By mutinying?" Starscream plonked back down on the old crate he'd been using as a chair, and went back to rifling through a box of spare parts. "That's not how I'd have defined the concept."

"Megatron set you up," Skywarp glared. "I heard him talking to Hook about it. I thought you deserved to know – might _appreciate _knowing. Shows how much _I_ know."

"Actually, he set _all three of us _up, and you two were idiot enough to go along with it," Starscream corrected, letting Thundercracker peel back the edges of the temporary plating and inspect the burn underneath. "Bad enough that he played _me_ for Cybertron's biggest idiot, but now we're all a laughing stock."

"I can understand how he got _you_, Screamer, but us?" Thundercracker glanced up at his dark co-conspirator. "I don't think he even knew Skywarp was listening in."

Skywarp had settled sulkily on a nearby crate and folded his arms across a rickety, makeshift table. He shook his head, poutily.

"I bet he didn't _need _to see you. He was probably looking to see who you were more loyal to," Starscream groused, hitching his wings with a hiss of discomfort. "Me, or him. What exactly did he say to you?"

"He said you were gone for good," Skywarp studied the patterns on the tabletop, feeling stupid.

"Oh, and you think he doesn't say that _every_ time we have a spat?" Starscream shook his head, exasperated. "_That _was the _bait_, which you ever-so-obediently _swallowed_. Do the pair of you never think any further forward than your next energon break?"

"Hey, watch it," Skywarp cuffed him around the back of the head. "We did it out of the goodness of our underappreciated, abused sparks. You could stand to say 'thanks', once in a while."

"And what did you expect the three of us to do _afterwards_?" Starscream glared but didn't move to echo the slap. "Wander our merry way back on board _Nemesis_, arm-in-arm, and hope everything had worked itself out in our absence? If Megatron hasn't erased all our security protocols already, I'll be very surprised. I'll be even _more_ surprised if we don't get shot clean out of the sky the instant we go near the space bridge."

"Play nicely, you sparklings," Thundercracker managed to resist the urge to clock both their silly heads together. "Yelling won't help us out, here."

"You're not exactly contributing much in the way of useful suggestions yourself!" Skywarp snapped. "You didn't _have_ to come along. I didn't stick a gun in your back and march you to the space bridge."

"Oh, so _you_'d have left you behind, now?" Thundercracker sniped back. "I couldn't exactly let you go alone, because Primus only knows what kind of a mess you'd have got yourself into, acting on your own initiative." He smoothed the temporary armour gentle back into place on Starscream's mutilated left wing, and added, more quietly; "I don't think I can do much for this right now. Not without supplies."

Starscream rubbed his temples and cycled cool air briefly through his intakes. "All right," he accepted, at last. "All right, well, we can't un-do what's already been done, we'll have to make it look like we knew what his plan was and meant to do this all along."

"How are we going to do that?" Two pairs of crimson optics met with irritable blue ones.

"Well, consider," he leaned forwards across the table and steepled his fingers. "We just have to find a way to get some mileage out of this. Get some supplies, rout some Autobots, find some new technology to steal. Anything that makes Megatron look bad, and maybe we can use it as leverage to get back into the ranks."

"That's if he doesn't vaporise us on sight before we can start speaking," Skywarp added, gloomily.

For a full three breems they simply sat and stared at each other. Then-

"I'm going to get a drink," Starscream groused, and added, brusquely; "_Alone_. Either of you follow me, and _I_ will shoot you."

Defeated, Skywarp slumped down on his seat and let his chin rest on the table. "_Now_ what do we do?" he stared up at Thundercracker.

"Wait for him to deign to rejoin us, I suppose," the blue Seeker stared after the departing red back. "And hope he gets back with the only dents being in his pride."


	3. Chapter 3

**Screaming Blue Murder – chapter three**

**A/N:**

Thanks again to my lovely reviewers. Is it just me gets a real high off just knowing someone's reading it and enjoying it? ;)

This chapter takes a bit of a darker turn. You might get a flavour of why I picked the title I did. If anyone thinks I should change the rating, because I'm never sure if I picked the right one, just drop me a note.

Whew, I don't think I'll be able to keep up my current pace of posting. ;) I've about caught up with where my scribbled notes have got to, so I'll be a bit slower here on in. Heh, I should have done this for my NaNoWriMo, I'd have been _storming_.

Lastly, about Deuce – I was about to post this last night when someone informed me there already WAS a character with that name out there – I don't know who he/she belongs to or anything, just that he/she exists. Because changing names mid-story always throws a spanner in my brainpan, to avoid losing my momentum I'm going to continue using the name for now, until I can find something else that sums up the character's manic-depressive split personality as well as this name does. Sincerest apologies to the original owner – not trying to step on toes, here, just trying to avoid not finishing. :(

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The _Flywheel_ was a bit of a dive, with empties loitering in the alleyway out the back and grim-faced Cybertronians clustering in dark corners in the main lounge, but it was the best quality dive in the neighbourhood, and sometimes exiles just had to take what they could get. On the plus side, it was clean, and quiet, _and_ the landlord hadn't immediately kicked him out for being a "filthy Decepti-creep", and the exile decided it would probably be pushing his luck if he complained too loudly about it. So Starscream found himself a quiet corner, at the end of the long bar, where he sat with his dark head propped on one arm, sulking into a half-empty cube of high-grade.

He was sorely in need of a proper refuelling, and at least an orn of rest and relaxation, and he strongly doubted he'd get either, in his new home on the derelict waterfront. Effing Megatron… Why couldn't he have waited until _after_ to blow things up? The red Seeker had been looking forwards to a good long cool flask of ultra-filtered energon, then a good long recharge in a perfectly temperature-controlled environment, and he'd actually _got_ neither. Instead he felt rotten – his wings felt heavy, his coolant lines had overpressurised, and he sorely needed to defragment his poor abused processors. And it was all his over-clocked half-fragged so-called commander's fault. Feh. Megatron couldn't command his way out of a wet paper sack. If not for the fact that he was half-indestructible-mining-bot, half-fecking-giant-_cannon_, all-ugly-temper, he'd have been consigned to the smelting pools long ago.

And his… Primus-damned… _idiot_ wingmates. They weren't helping, either, not one iota. He could have worked this in his favour with a little thought, and return in triumph just in time to see Megatron's latest half-processed plan leap up and bite him on the aft, but no, they _would_ have to get spooked and chase him. 'Getting spooked' was _hardly_ the behaviour of the most feared fliers to ever have patrolled the skies.

So now all three of them were stuck here, in this Primus-forsaken _limbo _– Megatron had got the message out and ensured they were unwelcome among their fellow Decepticons, of course they were too infamous to happily cohabit with many Neutrals, and as for the _Autobots_, _well_. He irritably rubbed at the laser burn that had strafed past his shoulder and sizzled a couple of coolant lines close to the surface of a joint – it hurt, but he'd fix it later. For now, the pain was keeping him sharp. Helping him focus some of that burning rage against Megatron into figuring out how in the Pit they were going to get back into Decepticon ranks without losing face. Well, without losing much _more_ of their dignity, because this hasty scramble to Cybertron could hardly have been less decorous. He could already sense the Autobots snickering behind closed doors at them. Cybertron's elite, the most terrifying fliers the skies had ever seen, scuttling home with their tails between their legs like a trio of naughty sparklings.

Starscream nursed his half-empty cube between his fingers for a while, turning it against the countertop and watching colours scintillate through the fluid. Good quality stuff, this, but he felt… disinclined to savour it. His mood wasn't right for that. Dammit, his mood wasn't 'right' for anything short of just plain energising himself out of his processors. Lubricate the anger away with excess energon. At least it'd be a cheap thrill – he never had been good at holding his drink, as the humans said, and would probably be right under the table after one or two more cubes.

He threw his head back and swallowed the cube's remaining contents in a single swallow, and pulled a face as it flashed into his systems. _Good quality_ didn't mean it wasn't harshly strong against his empty tanks. "Ugh. Why do I inflict this stuff on myself?" _Because I'm tired and depleted and need a quick buzz?_ "Fair point."

The landlord had drifted closer, by now. He was a nondescript mech, a drab blue-grey in colouration and probably lacking an alt-mode altogether if his scrawny, sticklike appearance was anything to go by, but he at least had the common decency to be marginally polite, and show a smidgen of respect where it was due. Although it went counter to most of his tendencies, Starscream found himself making an effort to reciprocate the sentiment – mostly so he didn't get kicked out, which would leave yet another goal unaccomplished.

"I need a refill." The fallen air commander lifted his head off his hand, and waved a hand, attracting the landlord's attention. "What else have you got behind there?" _You know this is going to end up being a very bad thing, Starscream. You can't even hold your high-grade, let alone whatever foreign fuels he pulls out from under the bar,_ he scolded himself. _Stop now while you're still ahead, and you might still be able to totter 'home' with a smidgen of dignity intact._

"Well, that depends on what else _you_ have in terms of credits." The landlord smiled, but it wasn't a friendly look. It was a sort of… predatory look. A sort of Megatron-is-waiting-for-you-to-slip-up type look.

"Will that be enough?" Ignoring the way his faithful sense of self-preservation was howling at him to _be a good little Decepticon and stop now oh __pleease__ stop now_, Starscream flicked his wrist and sent a few high-value credit chips skimming across the countertop at the landlord.

The other mech picked up the handful of chips, briefly appraised their value, and nodded, satisfied. "Hmm. I think I have the perfect thing for you, sir."

He reached under the counter, and for a second Starscream was convinced he was about to bring out a weapon now he'd got the money in his hand. He flushed his thrusters, involuntarily, tried not to look like he'd completely tensed up through his wings.

Thankfully, the landlord was not so shifty as the wary Decepticon had taken him to be. He straightened up with not a weapon, but rather a tiny cube of heavily cobalt-laced energon, and for a moment or two, he simply stared at it, thoughtfully. He was being paid a handsome wage to distribute this new product, but it upset his conscience-

"Hmm. What's the blue stuff?"

The landlord glanced up; the flier was watching him, curiously. "Beg pardon, sir?"

"The blue stuff. Come on, give it to me." A hand beckoned. "I want to try it."

He smiled, tightly. "No, no, you don't want this. Forgive me, sir. This is substandard quality, full of impurities," he lied, and bent to put it back away under the desk. "I saw your insignia, and considered tricking you out of your money. Please, forgive me. Allow me to find something better suited to your tastes."

Starscream grunted, ruffled at the idea of being denied something he wanted, but let it slide, watching as the landlord picked out another cube, equally small, but this time scintillating like captured starshine.

"Something far more suited to the refined palate of a cultured, stylish officer such as yourself," he oiled, trying to get back into the Seeker's favour. "_Superior_ grade."

Mollified, Starscream made a little noise of reserved judgement, and accepted the tiny offering. "Doesn't look like much," he pointed out. It was a tiny cube, a fraction smaller than the palm of his hand, and looked so innocuous, too – a tiny block of innocent brightness, rainbow-tinged crystal iridescence. _I paid enough for __three__ cubes of high-grade. This had better be worth it. _

"Perhaps not, but I'm sure you know better than most that appearances can deceive. That little cube, my friend, contains some of the purest, most intensely concentrated energy science has yet developed, harvested from the last violent throes of a dying star," the landlord argued. "You asked for the strongest I had, well, there it sits, so drink up or hush up."

"Hnh," Starscream sniffed, non-committally. He was well aware the landlord was mostly just artfully over-hyping the worth of the stuff – he was paid to sell it, after all, and it wasn't cheap – but if his words had any element of truth to them, he couldn't help being sneakily impressed. Supernovae put out a fantastic amount of energy in one big burst, and not only must it have been unbelievably hard to actually _collect_ that as a fuel, it must have been incredibly dangerous, too. _I wonder if the idiot who decided to go collect it survived the encounter?_ He smirked in spite of himself. _All that effort for something no-one has the money or the time to savour, any more. _

_Oh well. Bottoms up, Aerospace Commander._ He picked up the cube, and downed its contents in a gulp.

No sense of taste was no barrier to interpreting the powerful _kick_ the stuff had. The bright ruin took him completely by surprise, scorching its way down his intake line, and he felt his body react to it, threatening to purge the stuff straight back out of his system. Pumps lurched involuntarily. He wheezed and vented vapours from his intakes, and the volatile fumes immediately settled in a brief corona around his head, making his cortex pleasantly destabilised for a moment or two.

_Wow. __Impressively__ strong stuff. _Vapours had already offlined his vocaliser – he rebooted it with little coughing sound, and tried again. "That's some good stuff," he managed, in a thin little scratch that sounded nothing like his usual powerfully nasal voice. "Let's have another."

The landlord quirked an optic at him – although the credits had been produced so fast it was as if they jumped onto the counter all of their own accord, this time, the Seeker was already canting dramatically over to his left. "I think you look like you've had plenty already-"

"Ex-_cuse_ me, but _I_ will tell you when I have had enough. And I would like another one."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

…As it happened, the landlord _did_ ultimately tell the Seeker when he'd had enough. He could see the way the flier teetered on his seat, barely able to remain sitting on it even though it wasn't moving, and knew that if even the smallest drop more energon passed his lips, all that superior grade he'd succeeded in actually keeping _inside_ his fuel lines would suddenly find its way back out onto the floor. (Although he was more worried about the unholy stink the volatile stuff would make. He didn't want an empty bar and the chore of mopping up purged energon just because one idiot flier didn't know his limits.)

"Can I call anyone for you?" he offered, and the dark face spent a moment or two looking for him before the azure optics at last met with his own. "A lift home, maybe. You're in no condition to be flying."

"I think the, uhm… the _pride_ of the air force… can find his own way home," the tottery Seeker argued, waving a finger to underline his thesis and clinging with to the stool with the other hand in an effort to remain standing. "I do not desire a, uhm… a _taxi_… of any sort. Thank you."

_You mean you don't want anyone to see you quite so royally out of it._ "All right, sir. So long as you're sure." The landlord kept his thoughts to himself, though, watching the red back wobble its unsteady way around invisible obstacles to the door and out into the dark street beyond.

"I hope you haven't forgotten our agreement, bartender," a voice spoke softly from the shadows.

The landlord didn't look up; he knew the voice well enough already. Its owner, an individual known only as "the Sleeper", would be in the small alcove to the side of the bar, wearing a lightweight, low-grade sensor baffle, shadowy to the point of invisibility in the low lighting. "I haven't forgotten it."

"I hope you also haven't forgotten that we engaged your services to sell _our_ product," the Sleeper reminded. "Not to advance your own ambitions."

"I wouldn't dream of it. I am simply exercising prudence in my choice of sales."

"Be sure that is all it is, bartender," the voice descended into a hiss. "Because this will be your final warning. If we notice you hesitating about supplying our product again, we will… curtail your supplies. Of _all_ your products."

The landlord stiffened, almost imperceptibly. "You can't do that," he asserted, but he didn't sound too sure of himself. "You don't control the whole supply chain. You just control the Blue."

"Don't imagine you can tell us what we _can_ and _can not_ do." There was a dark chuckle. "We have contacts who can make your life _very_ difficult indeed."

"All right," the landlord flinched and finally looked over to the shadows, where the familiar, hated amber optics steadily watched him. "All right. I just… look, I don't want to tangle with Decepticons! Not even _you_ are paying me enough danger money to cover that! I'll sell to Neutrals, fine, and Autobots if I have to, but not Decepticons-"

"You will _tangle_, as you put it, with whoever you can." The words were steel-edged. "If you do not, we will ensure you _tangle_ with far _worse_."

"It'll get back to Megatron-! And when he finds out-"

"He will not find out until it is too late. By the time he realises half of his army is under our control, it will be too late for him to counter." A finger pointed, angrily. "Have we made our position clear?"

"Very, sir-"

"Good. Now if you will excuse me, landlord, I have a loose end to tie up," the Sleeper hissed, irritably, and there was the sound of muffled footsteps. "Do not forget our agreement."

The landlord finally allowed the stale air to circulate out of his systems, cycling cool air back through. He knew what the Sleeper meant – the 'loose end' was the drunken flier who had just a breem or two beforehand woven his unsteady way out into the street. One was not allowed to see Blue unless one was a supplier or a client, and the flier was neither. Which meant he had to be induced to 'forget' he had seen.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The street was deserted – not that it had been busy to start with. Starscream didn't mind the emptiness – there were fewer obstacles to have to negotiate, to start with, and he didn't have to keep such a firm grip on his inappropriately energetic inner sparkling, who wanted to dance to the inaudible music playing in his brainpan. Some silly sentimental human claptrap he'd not purged from his memory, now it had become a… a… what did they call it? A brainworm. That was it. He permitted his inner sparkling the liberty of mutilating a few lines of it, sounding more like a blender full of cats than anything musical, then sent it back to bed with a little twirl around a light-pole.

Thoughts were flashing through his central cortex far too quickly for him to keep an accurate track of them. It was like chasing meteorites, and just as pointless – by the time he caught up with one, another three would be leading off in slightly different directions and the original would have died to embers. He wondered if this was what Skywarp felt like, always going off at a tangent before his first thought had come to fruition.

The sky was peculiarly attractive. It had been a long time since he'd just _studied_ the stars, picking out familiar shapes and constellations, assigning them their worlds. Earth's sky had different constellations, but he didn't often get the chance to planet-spot – when it was dark like this, he was usually keeping an eye on the ground, checking there was nobody around to shoot at him.

_Pretty stars. Wonder if I can still reach them?_ He rumbled his thrusters, and decided it was probably inadvisable, with all his stabilisers so happily _un_stable.

Had he been a little more aware of his surroundings, he might have noticed the three strangers who had fallen in step with him, a short distance behind, and were now tailing him.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Come on."

"Come on what?" Thundercracker glanced up from the news feed. Their long absence from home had meant he'd forgotten how Cybertronian news was every bit as dull as Earthly news, just in different ways. Cybertronian news was about the energy crisis, and that was pretty much it.

"Come on, we're going to look for Screamer." Skywarp was already pacing irascibly in front of the doorway. "He's taking far too long about this… this 'drink' business."

"He won't thank us for it. He'll probably follow up on his promise to shoot you."

"I don't care. He's been gone too long."

"Lay off, Warp. He doesn't want to see us." Thundercracker redirected his attention to the little vidscreen; the newscaster was finishing a report about a new narcotic that had got into the supply chain. Well, it made a change to the energy deficit. "He'll turn up sometime tomorrow after getting over-energised and sleeping it off in a gutter somewhere."

Skywarp continued to pace, and fidget. "But what if Megatron's sent someone to assassinate him? What if we're all that stands between him and a fiery doom?"

"Does it take practice to be extra-paranoid, or is this actually your natural state, you just got good at hiding it?" Thundercracker glared. "Sit down, Primus sake. You're making the place look untidy." A brief glance around at the piles of scrap, and he revised; "Moreso than its natural condition."

Skywarp managed to sit and fidget for a full breem before getting back to his feet and resuming pacing.

"Oh for Primus sake," Thundercracker threw his hands up in despair. "Does this serve any purpose at all, or are you just trying to dig a trench with your thrusters?"

"I only want you to help me look for him," Skywarp pouted, pathetically.

"Oh, all right, all right. Anything for a bit of peace and quiet. We'll go and look for him. But if he loses his temper, it was _your_ idea."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Starscream was… sort of… lost. Well, not strictly _lost_, per se, he just wasn't entirely sure where he _was_. He'd allowed his inner sparkling to dictate the route he took, since it seemed far more coherent than his inebriated inner air commander, but now the inner air commander had awoken from its stupor and was demanding to know where it was, and the inner sparkling wasn't entirely sure. It had taken a _left_ back there, and a _right_ into this alleyway, and… he was pretty sure this wasn't the way to the docks.

At least his inner sparkling knew which way he'd gone, and after an about-face that almost tripped him over his own ankles, he set about retracing his tracks. Back down the alleyway, and-

His way had been blocked by a big groundling. It was a brutish but lethargic-looking creature, burly but with a practiced slouch in its back that made it look smaller than it was, and the caterpillar treads on his limbs implied it had a heavy-hauling alt-mode. Maybe like an earthly caterpillar-tractor. Fitting. Big and stupid and lacking ambition, like all those other ground-bound morons.

Starscream pulled a sneery face. Getting in his way seemed to be the main reason groundlings existed, so far as he could tell – and not just physically, either, they always got in his way of global domination. Stupid Autobots. He veered off sideways, to circumnavigate the obstacle, and watched it follow him, remaining in his way. What was the idiot playing at? He changed direction again, and it kept resolutely square in his path.

"Good evening," it greeted, in its heavy voice.

"You're in my way."

"Why yes, so I am." It smiled, but didn't move out of his way.

"Would you mind getting _out_ of my way?"

"Yes, frankly I _would _mind."

That had been the wrong answer. _Nobody _defied Starscream's instructions so flagrantly! He glared. "Just-… _Move over_, fatty," he instructed, attempting to push past, but a massive fist closed on one wing and steered him back into the alley. "Oi, stop that! I'll have you know-"

"Hush your vocaliser, short-aft," a new voice snapped, and the Seeker turned his head to find two newcomers advancing from the opposite direction. "We've got business with you."

The new speaker was only fractionally smaller than the caterpillar-tractor, but sharper, more angular – maybe a delivery vehicle? - and burning with a nervous energy, bobbing gently on his feet. The final was a weedy little thing that looked like it was all made out of pipes – as to what _its_ alt might have been, Starscream found himself at a loss. An… energon pipeline? He snerked quietly to himself at the idea. Had he been a little more alert to danger, he might have noticed that two of the three were _significantly_ larger than him. Larger, and stronger, and a whole lot more solidly built.

"I don't think you do," Starscream disagreed, folding his arms across his cockpit. "I don't do business with the likes of you. Now if you wouldn't mind, I have to be getting home."

"Home? All right. We'll do you a deal, Decepticon, Autobot, whatever you are," the big one rolled, at last. "All those credits you've been splashing around? We want what's left. All of them. Then maybe we'll see about letting you get home. Wherever that is."

Starscream listened to himself speak with a growing unease. "You're more of an idiot than you look if you think I'm the sort of mech to happily share his hard-earned cash with the first bunch of gutter-trawling neutrals that come along," he sniped. "Especially such an ambitionless group of empties who couldn't even make it with the Autobots."

"I think he's trying to rile us up, boys," the big one observed.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I used too many long words," Starscream went on, sweetly, not really sure why he couldn't shut up. Maybe vapours had loosened his vocaliser. Maybe the words were just flowing faster than his sense of self-preservation, and escaping before he could consider the future and swallow them. "How's this? I don't have any credits. I already spent them all. Ask the barkeep at the _Flywheel_."

His drunken, sleepy sense of self-preservation had gone into a paroxysm of inner arm-flailing. This-… this was _not_ the Starscream _Modus operandi_! This stupid bravado was _not_ the way he'd stayed alive and at the top all these centuries! Normal, sane Starscream would have flung a handful of credits at the thugs, and legged it as fast as his thrusters would take him in the opposite direction while their attention was elsewhere. This superior-grade-filled Starscream seemed to have a fragging _death wish._

"I think you misunderstood," the biggest one said, softly. "It wasn't a _request_, it was an _instruction_. One that you'll carry out if you value your continued functionality.

"I. Have. No. Credits," Starscream waggled a finger under the giant's noseless face. "You will get nothing out of me, regardless of how long you stand there. Why not go find a rich neutral to bully?"

"I am tiring of these games," the giant's optics had narrowed. "Either you co-operate, or we make things difficult."

"I take that back," Starscream chuckled. "With bargaining powers like those, you probably _could_ make it with the Autobots."

"I'm so flattered. Deuce? Give 'im a wallop, see if you can't shake some credits out of his pockets."

"_With pleasure._"

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Well?"

"Landlord confirms he was here, but that he left a good cycle ago," Skywarp glanced back at the door he'd just exited. "But he says he was barely able to walk straight. He can't have got far."

"Surely that means we should have already passed him?" It had taken a while, but Skywarp's niggling concerns had finally infected his wing-mate. "There's not many ways to get to this place, so unless he went on to somewhere else-"

"Is this the same Starscream we're talking about? The one who can't even stand up after one or two cubes of high-grade?"

"By that logic, he'll be in a gutter somewhere," Thundercracker rubbed his upper arms, irritably. "We better split up. We'll cover more ground, stand a better chance of finding him before he gets too deep into a situation he can't get himself back out of."

"Yeah. But keep in contact, right?" Skywarp's optics had an odd feverishness about them.

Thundercracker gave him a glance. "Warp?"

"Just-… keep in contact?"

"All right…" _Better just agree with him._ "I took it as a given that we'd stay in contact."

"I know. I just… I needed to hear to say it."

There was obviously something eating at the dark Seeker's confidence, but extracting details of what it was that had him so off-kilter was going to take time. He'd allow himself the luxury of questioning Skywarp into a ball of temper later, once they had Screamer safely tucked away in recharge, to sleep off his inebriation…

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Fatigue was irritated. The slightly-built red Seeker had withstood the physical brutality a lot better than they'd anticipated. They'd not even managed to extract a squeak of pain out of him, let alone get him to crack, no matter _where _they hit him or how _hard_. Even that imaginative crackpot Siphon hadn't managed it, which was pretty much unheard of.

Their prey knelt on all fours on the lubricant-splattered street with his broken, winged shoulders shaking with emotion – but it was not tears that made his entire body shake like this, Primus no. There was something terribly wrong with the flier's brain, because he was _laughing_. Maybe it was what being a Decepticon did to a machine – turned you _insane_.

For his part, Starscream wasn't entirely sure why it had come across as so funny, because it _hurt_. And if he'd not been so-… what was that word the humans used? They were so good at inventing nonsensical sounds to fit where no Cybertronian word fitted. Pished. That was the one. If he'd not been so pished, he may have been a little more capable of defending himself. He was _not_ the Decepticon second in command _just_ because of his brains! He was a fighting machine honed to the very edge of perfection, fast and strong and ruthless and _oooh _did it ever feel like he'd just gone three rounds against Megatron again. It was _murder_ through his poor abused wings, all over again. If someone had told him he'd never fly again from his injuries, he'd have believed them.

But their faces, oh _Primus_ their faces…! They looked so self-righteously horrified. One quick glance upwards was all it took to send him into another cackling, sobbing rictus of helpless laughter.

"Pit, some of these new Seekers really _are_ operating several logic circuits short of a motherboard," one of the Hoods groaned, sounding genuinely shocked, and Starscream doubled up in another paroxysm of agonised amusement.

"_New_… Seekers…" he sobbed the words out between static-filled howls of laughter. _No, this is what thousands of vorns of working for Megatron does to you._

"C'mon, we best make a move. This was supposed to be a quick, quiet operation. All this racket'll bring others, f'sure," the leader instructed, at last. "You two make a move for it, I'll catch you up once I finished business here. Got to make sure he doesn't remember this, come morning."

There was the sound of two pairs of heavy, departing bootsteps, and the sound of shifting, reconfiguring armour, and Starscream caught a glimpse of a pair of groundling vehicles – a truck and a little tanker – coasting away around the corner, before something sharp dug into the nape of his neck and there was a crackling pulse of something painful that shot sparks through his brain. He gave a grunt and felt his elbows buckle, spilling him into a sprawl on the ground. There was another hard shove on the implement at the back of his skull, and more of those painful sparks, and he grunted softly in pain. The unpleasant image of his assailant skewering him clean through the head flashed into his processors, but the instant he'd imagined it, the weapon was gone and his assailant was running after his friends.

Starscream just lay where he'd been abandoned on the blissfully cool plating of the lonely pavement and sighed his pleasure at it. _So cool. So sweet. So nice. _A completely misplaced sense of self-congratulation settled around his shoulders. He'd got rid of them, _and_ kept all his money. Ha. Beat that, Megatron. It would be nice to just lay here forever. That nice long recharge he'd been wanting.

Finally a spark of self-preservation filtered through his amusement at what he considered to have been getting one over on the thugs. He could _see _the spreading pool of fluids underneath him, now. _Hnh. Still bleeding. Probably ought to get up. _

Standing took an oddly large effort. Was it always this difficult to get to his thrusters? He was sure getting up – and legging it away from an angry Megatron, who was usually responsible for putting him _on _the floor – wasn't always this difficult. He made it to his knees and waited while his gyroscopes caught up, then climbed the rest of the way to his feet, hauling his way up a conveniently-placed utilities pole.

_Hmm, lots of fluid down there_, he observed. _Is that all out of me? I didn't know I had the spare capacity. Huh. Going to have to refuel again. _

He gingerly let go of the light-pole and tested his balance, which was off – his wings were at funny angles and pulling him in funny directions – then tottered out into the street, trailing fluids.


	4. Chapter 4

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Four**

**Disclaimer **- same as usual. :) No ownership of pre-existing characters or the "Transformers" brand is implied or claimed, it belongs to Hasbo/whoever, etc etc.

**A/N:** Sorry this one's so long – I even took some bits _out_ to make it shorter and it's still horrible. Oh well. I was having issues deciding on a good place to stop it. :P And ugh, so OOC. :flails:

Thanks to my reviewers. :) And thank you to those who reassured me about my use of the name "Deuce" – I'm a bit 'erf' that TWO people thought it up before I did, but I guess it's just SUCH a cool name… ;) Still trying to come up with an alternative, but he's stuck with it for now.

--

The Boss' rooms were always a little unnerving to get to, especially with most of the lights dimmed. You had to first walk through the laboratory, where new strains of Blue were considered and worked up, and the rows of supercomputers always reminded Fatigue of some kind of giant predator, curled up against the wall, glittering hungrily. Living in a factory had always struck him as a little bit like a fleshie choosing to live in an operating theatre, but hey, the Boss was a genius and lowly groundlings like him had no place in trying to work out why geniuses did what geniuses did.

Didn't make it any nicer to walk through the laboratory, though. He wished someone would leave a few lights on, just the once.

The office – or whatever they should be calling it these days, given that the only office-ly accoutrements it had was a big, shadowy chair and a big-aft computer screen – was a little pool of light at the far end. The Boss was obviously at home, waiting patiently for their report.

"Good evening, gentlemechs," came the greeting, as the trio approached the door, the voice sweet and misplaced on such a powerfully deadly intellect. "I take it you had a productive evening."

Fatigue led the way. He took three large steps into the office, inclined his massive head and bowed steeply to the voice in the shadows, then settled to one knee and watched from the corner of his eye as his 'brothers' followed suit on either side. "We did exactly as you asked," he murmured. "I think you'll be pleased with our results."

"I shall exercise my right to reserve judgement," the voice purred, amusedly. "You have made such grandiose claims and yet still failed me, in the past, Fatigue. Whether you all get your bonus will depend entirely on how my mood is once I have reviewed the footage."

"This time, we mean it, Boss. After this gets into the gossip chain, no-body will doubt the power we have here." Fatigue couldn't keep the pride out of his voice. "We got you a Decepticon. Okay, so admittedly a kinda confused little Decepticon, wearing all Autobot colours under his insignia, but as snobby and half-crazed as they come, all bristlin' with guns and pomposity."

"Hmm," was curious reply. "If one of you would be so kind as to actually _give_ me the recording?"

"Siphon?" Fatigue gave the tanker a 'friendly' elbow in the side of his head that almost knocked him right over. "I hope you're not bein' slow because you lost it."

"If you gimme a second, I'm trying to _get_ it!" Siphon spat, his voice echoing hollowly through his piping, then flicked his wrist and the little datachit sailed through space between him and the Boss. "All three visuals," he explained. "As you might imagine, my record is probably best."

"Only 'cause we wouldn't let him _do_ much," Deuce added, with a leer, and planted a palm to his chest plating. "Wouldn't want 'im to strain himself, an' why waste time filming that little scrap of piping when my brother and I are _clearly _so much better to watch?"

Siphon quivered, but Fatigue had planted a hand down on his shoulder and was stopping him going for Deuce. "_So_ gonna get you later," he hissed.

"Look forward to seeing you _try_," came the whispered reply, and the truck's sharply nasal snicker, and Siphon strongly considered putting something nasty in his Blue when he got the chance.

There was a breem or two of peaceful silence, as the Boss reviewed the footage, and then a sibilant little chuckle. "Glad to see you're all still using your habitual good sense and judgement when picking your victims." There was a thoughtful pause. "It would have been a smidgen better if you had _intoxicated_ the poor brute rather than murdered him. It would have been a powerful advertisement of our product to have the likes of him on our, ah… 'payroll'."

"Surely we have bigger targets in mind than a skinny little Decepticon or two?"

The Boss was silent for a moment or two. "You do know the identity of that poor individual that you beat to slag and left to die in an alleyway?"

"Pshh," Fatigue waved a dismissive hand. "Just some confused little Decepticon-Autobot-nonentity. The barman at the _Flywheel_ picked him for us, although I don't think he'd like us to say so."

"What do you mean?"

"He means the barkeep bottled it before givin' him the Blue," Siphon pointed out, leering. "Got scared of all the D-con symbols on 'im. So we had to clobber the flier to keep him quiet about it, you know?"

"Given the subject, I think I would have 'bottled it', as well. That crazy, confused little nonentity, as you put it, Fatigue…?" The Boss laughed again, a thin, high giggle that clawed over the nerves. "Was none other than the Decepticon Second-in-Command himself. Although Primus only knows what he was doing at the _Flywheel_."

Even the sleepy, hard-to-impress Fatigue's jaw dropped at the words. "You mean… that _we_… fragged up… _Starscream_?"

"Judging by this footage, he was hardly in a position to be defending himself. But yes. I believe you did." Another little murmuring laugh. "And oh my yes, any remaining doubts anyone may have had as to our ability and influence will be quashed. No longer the pretenders to the Decepticon supremacy, but a viable and effective faction in our own right. All three of you have done better than I could ever have anticipated," the voice praised, genuinely. "Your reward has been doubled."

Deuce didn't even try to restrain his glee, giving a little _whoop_ of triumph.

"Doubled?" Fatigue sat up straighter and grinned, stupidly. "That's a whole lot of Blue."

"And only the best for my loyal deputies. You may be excused, gents. Enjoy the rest of your evening! Just, um… Siphon?"

The lanky bundle of tubes halted just shy of the doorway, allowing his much larger colleagues to push past him. "Boss?"

"Do you have plans?"

He quirked his head over to one side and thought. "Only to indulge my addiction. Why?"

"…I wondered if you might consider being company for me, tonight."

"Company, Boss?" He looked puzzled.

"In, um…" There was a little pause, and when the voice spoke again it was lower. Huskier. _Sweeter._ "In my private quarters."

The tanker grinned. "Letting me feed my 'other addiction', huh, Boss? You're on. With a bit of luck it won't only be the Blue that's pulsing, tonight."

"Is that a threat?" A chuckle. "Or a promise?"

0o0o0o0o

Looking for their wingmate was a bit like chasing shadows. Finding individuals willing to talk to him in the first place was hard enough – they looked instantly at his insignia and usually made a run for it – and out of those who _would _talk to him, Skywarp got lied to at least twice for every genuine comment he got. He'd rapidly found himself doing nothing but a big circle around the neighbourhood and ending up back where he started.

Thundercracker was not a particularly happy Seeker, either. "_I've s__till got nothing_," he'd reported, a breem earlier. "_I even asked a couple of empties if they'd seen anything, but no-one's been this way in cycles, if they're to be believed_."

"Think we can trust 'em?"

"_Yeah, I guess we can. I bribed them with my last energon._"

"Going soft, TC. Should have 'bribed' them with a cannon in the faceplates."

"_Not everyone's as subtle as you, Warp_." Pause. "_Look, I'm going to head on over to the next district. There's nothing here. And everyone's staring at me like they've never seen a mech with wings before._"

"Anyone would think you didn't like being admired."

"_I don't mind being __admired__, I don't like being assessed for my value in scrap metal._" Pause. "_Check in with you in another couple of breems. Thundercracker out._"

Skywarp sighed, and closed off his end of the connection. An un-Skywarp-ly guilt was chewing on his brainpan, and he didn't like it. This was not what Skywarps were supposed to be like, Skywarps were noisy and annoying and irresponsible and prone to stupid pranks. Soul-searching and guilt-tripping was best left to the Thundercrackers of this world. He squashed the guilt back down, squared his shoulders, and continued walking.

The 'park' up ahead was a big old chunk of open space, with the occasional decorative metallic 'tree' or a bench or 'art' installation, but otherwise flat and empty. In spite of the dark, Starscream would be easy to spot if he was in there somewhere, and it was easily surveyed from the air. He'd do a quick but dedicated sweep, then check in with Thundercracker and move to a new vector, himself.

There was a drunk approaching up the pavement – over-energised, gyros dancing off conflicting magnetic pulses from his cortex and turning a straight, strong stride into a lazy weave, footsteps all over the place and incapable of just going in a straight line. Skywarp pulled a face, and immediately wondered if he should just teleport round him before the wanderer started feeling him up for loose change or untended energon cubes. Or maybe teleport _behind_ him, and give him a tidy shove into the dustbins, the most appropriate place for him to assimilate all that excess energy and get past his stupor.

Although-… hmm. That looked like drunk _flier_. Maybe, just in case, he did ought to inter… cept…

Daydreams of silly pranks suddenly fell by the wayside. This wasn't just some stupid over-energised Cybertronian, getting cratered just because it was the only good way to pass the time. This wasn't just a drunken weave, either – the hitching stride was part inebriated stagger, part injured limp. And that glitter wasn't just the reflection of light on a silvery chassis but the fizz of sparks and fuel over exposed circuitry-

Harsh light from the street-lamps glinted off a pale body. Pale wings. Well, pale _wing_, because the left one was nowhere visible, perhaps – hopefully – just bent back. _Primus. Oh Primus frag it all to the Pit._ Skywarp lurched into a trot, then a flat out sprint. The night-washed paintjob was hard to make out, just greys and whites under the starlight, but in his subconscious, familiarity turned the greys into colours. White. Red. Blue. And the green-grey smear of spilled lubricant, the hot little twinkle of sparks playing across broken circuitry, the brilliant splash of fuel leaking from ruptured lines.

"…Warp?" the drunk greeted, apparently oblivious to his injuries, and gave him a little wave, giving his cockpit a temporary new energon-coloured paintjob from the spurting fuel-line at the back of his wrist.

"Holy Primus, Screamer-… what the _frag _have you done to yourself…?" Skywarp skidded to a stop just in time to catch Starscream when he tripped over a trailing foot again and lurched into a fall. Heavy bodies connected with an unfamiliar _crunch_ – presumably the sound of more components breaking – and made Skywarp wince in sympathy.

Starscream gave a funny little grunt of discomfort and clawed shaking hands over his wingmate's arm in an effort to drag himself back upright. He didn't get very far, his feet skidding uselessly over the hard ground – it was only Skywarp's firm grip that kept him vertical.

_We should have gone looking for him sooner. _Megatron-induced injuries were usually on a par with this, but he tended to use his fusion cannon as much as his fists and the superheated shots would usually self-cauterise before too much fluid could leak out, and of course there was usually a repair bay full of useful life-preserving equipment within lurching distance.

Starscream had been staggering along like this in the dark for far too long. He probably didn't even completely realise how comprehensively he was damaged, in this inebriated state, having drunk himself numb to the worst of the pain. His cracked, dented plating was not so much _smeared_ as it was _copiously puddled_ with his own essential fluids – to Skywarp's untrained eye, there was probably more energon _outside_ (and all the way up the pavement in the direction Starscream had come from) than there was _inside_.

"Come on, sit down, sit-" Skywarp instructed, shakily. _How the frag had he got so damaged?_

Starscream complied, although it was less _sit_ and more _collapse._ His knees buckled and his weight sagged both of them to the ground. "…took you so long to get here…?" he accused, grimly.

"You didn't exactly make yourself easy to find," Skywarp scolded, half-heartedly, giving him a quick visual examination. "Who did this to you? Did Megatron send them?"

"Tsh." A misplaced half-sneer half-grin came over the red Seeker's dark face. "They didn' take any." Words fizzed their staticky way from his vocaliser, and he waved a triumphant finger for emphasis, a mist of coolant vapours jetting from a ruptured line close to a broken shoulder pylon. "Not one credit."

"This was all over money?" Skywarp cupped a hand around his cheek and forced him to look him in the eye, incredulous. "Primus, Screamer, how much have you _had _tonight…?"

Starscream examined his finger for a moment, as if wondering why it was still up in front of his face, then met the accusing crimson gaze. "Enough."

"Okay. Okay." _Damn, is he still bleeding? _A puddle had begun to accumulate on the ground at Starscream's right knee. _Pit, he needs a medic, pronto._ "Best get you home. Hear me, Screamer? Home?"

The fallen air commander had already slumped bonelessly against his colleague. "…nem'sis."

"Ah, no, eh, we'll… we'll think about that bit later," Skywarp winced and tried to rearrange himself. "Thundercracker? TC, come in."

"_Skywarp? What's_-"

"I've got him," Skywarp managed to keep his voice even. "Meet you back at base."

"_How is he_?"

Skywarp hesitated. "He's, uh-… overcharged. Just-… meet you back at base, right?"

There was a pause at the end of the line, and Skywarp knew that his friend sensed there was a problem even if he didn't know exactly what. "…_all right. Meet you there._"

Starscream was muttering something under his breath. Skywarp leaned closer in an effort to catch the words, wondering if it was something important. The names of his attackers, the reasons they'd gone for him? He was already convinced Megatron had a hand in it, and was hoping – without much conviction – that hearing an Autobot name would put his own jitters at ease.

"…they wouldn'-… wouldn't gimme the-… blue stuff," Starscream was muttering into his friend's chest. "…don' they know who I _am_…? …how dare-… how _dare_ they say _no_…"

"Blue stuff, Starscream?" Skywarp glanced down at where Starscream was studying the film of pale bluish refrigerant on his broken fingertips. _Delirious, or something_, he decided. _Maybe they broke his brain, too. _"Come on, Commander. Up," he wobbled to his feet with his commander still hanging off his arm, and hauled upwards.

"…up," Starscream agreed, and made a valiant effort at standing, but his knees were bandy and an over-taxed motor whined thinly. "Hnh."

"Come on, work with me, here. I've got to be able to move to teleport. Get _up_, you mobile scrap-heap!"

"Whee." A sputter of heat from his foot turbines and a lurching shove that almost collapsed them into a differently-configured heap (with Skywarp on his back at the bottom) got Starscream to his feet, at last, although Skywarp was of the opinion it had been an attempt to take off altogether.

Making sure his grip was secure around his mutilated wingmate, Skywarp turned slightly and teleported. Three such hops brought him to a halt in the dilapidated old quayside warehouse they'd appropriated as a temporary base of operations. He managed to manhandle Starscream over to the only recharge berth in the building before there was another of those lurches and misting spurts of free energon from the white knees and the red Seeker was down again, this time luckily _on_ the berth, his bent wing sticking down over the edge.

"Comfortable?" Skywarp was already circling, trying to work out which bit was most damaged and most important to work on. He'd narrowed it down to 'all of it', so far.

"No."

"Sorry. Not much I can do about it. I'll try and be quick." The dark Seeker sank to one knee on the left side and examined a crush fracture in the side of his friend's torso – fluids were oozing out around it. "Gonna have to pry this plate off. You still pretty dead to pain, for now?"

"…uh?" Confused blue eyes squinted with difficulty at him.

Skywarp set his jaw. _Here goes nothing_. A tweak in the right places released the clamps that usually held the heavy armour in place, and a little tug-… stuck… make that a hefty _yank_ that sent Skywarp sprawling on his aft and jerked a pained cry from Starscream's vocaliser finally got it to come off. Fluids jetted briefly, now there was no barrier to them emerging energetically into the air, catching Skywarp in the stunned faceplates.

"Damn," Skywarp leaped into action, as if jabbed with a stick. "Damn damn _damn_-! Stop that, stop-" He managed to catch hold of the fuel line before much more energon pumped out across his face, convulsed the line into a knot-

There was a thin grunt of discomfort, and a blue hand shoved feebly at his shoulder. "…g'roff, Warp. Hurts."

"Sorry, sorry-…" The knot he'd _almost_ tied had slipped open again. "I've got to pinch all these off before you bleed to death." Skywarp narrowed his focus and managed to get the knot to stay, squeezing it as tight as he could get it to go. _One down, a thousand more to go. _

"_Off_!" the snarl repeated.

The shove was a little better co-ordinated, and Skywarp found himself toppling. "-erp!" He caught himself on his hands before ending up in the middle of the pile of crates, and glared at his injured wingmate.

"_Hurts_," Starscream reminded him, glaring feebly.

"So stop jigging about, already!" Skywarp sat forward, and swiped greyish lubricant off his optics. The coolant line had already pretty much stopped leaking, which worried him – it implied the system was already empty. "Frag it, Screamer, you're not exactly helping either of us, here."

It was getting hard to tie all these ruptured lines off. Not only were his hands getting slippery from the unholy mixture of fluids – the most disgustingly slimy substance in the universe like, _ever_ – all these hundreds of tiny vessels were so darn _tiny_. _Need a fragging… __soldering iron__, or something. Just fuse them all closed. _

"Holy Primus-"

Skywarp glanced up at the soft exclamation; Thundercracker was silhouetted in the doorway, frozen in place. He'd been so engrossed in his morbid task that he'd missed the dull roar of the blue Seeker's engines coming in for a landing.

"You could have told me he was this bad," Thundercracker accused, grimly, giving the other two a despairing look. "I could have tried to find a medic." Starscream was delirious and muttering about nothing, and a wide-eyed, bordering-on-breakdown Skywarp was already liberally spattered all down his front in essential fluids.

"A medic? Where would _we_ find a medic that isn't surrounded by a whole fragging _phalanx_ of Autobots to gun us down the instant they see us?" A hurt sound accompanied the swat from a blue arm which sprayed another mist of energon across Skywarp's face. "Will you quit doing that?!" his voice fractured, and he cast a pleading look at the blue flier. "Gimme a hand here, TC?"

Thundercracker had already moved closer, snatching a rusty but serviceable old pair of pliers up off one of the piles of discarded supplies. "He give you any idea what happened? Aside from the obvious."

"No, but it doesn't take much working out. Someone tried to kill him. And I bet Megatron sent them, whoever it was," Skywarp theorised, his fevered optics glittering in a look bordering on insanity. "We're next, TC. I know we're next. He sent them to do away with all three little problems in one tidy hit, and they already got Screamer and now we're next. We gotta finish this and get him away from here. Get him stable and get away-"

"What are you talking about, Warp? Hey… hey! Warp! Look at me?"

Skywarp glared at the tiny tubes and tried to get his shaking fingers to co-operate. "Gotta tie this off-"

"_Skywarp_."

At last he glanced up. Thundercracker was staring hard at him. "What?"

"Go sit over there until you calmed down." An arm pointed at the boxes.

"I'm fine. I don't need to sit."

"You're _vibrating_, Warp. Go sit down, before I give you a clock on the helm and _make _you go take a nap. I can take care of this."

Skywarp looked down at his shaking fingers – when _had _they started to shake, anyway? – and forced them to be still. "I'm fine."

Unexpectedly, Thundercracker pointed a cannon at him. "I told you to go sit, so go sit," he snapped. "I'm not going to tell you again and I'm not above shooting you."

Skywarp stared him down for a moment, before losing his nerve in the face of the high whistle of charging weapons relays and retreating to one of the old heaps of crates, where he sat disconsolately and watched. His wings were still vibrating softly and rattling against the broken old plastic.

Starscream's feeble little swats and shoves were getting steadily more pathetic, and a lot easier to avoid. Thundercracker fended them off with one hand, dexterously tying knots with the other. "What exactly is it that's got you so shaken up, anyway?" he didn't even look up. "I didn't think there was much at all that fazed you."

"Sitting waiting here for Megatron's _death squad _to come along and burst in through our door kinda did it," Skywarp replied, trying to act belligerent but just coming across as shaky. "A fiery death for the three mutineers."

Thundercracker gave him a funny look, and his lip twitched where he was clearly trying not to crack an inappropriate grin. "Megatron's what?"

"Don't tell me _you're_ not worried about them."

"I wish I had your imagination, Warp. I didn't even know he _had_ such a thing, unless you include us three."

"This is serious! He sent them after Screamer, and I'm going to be next-!"

"Oh, give over. You're being paranoid." Thundercracker's look softened into a sympathetic smile. "Get your head down, and get a breem or two of rest. Defragment some of those nasty ideas out of your processors."

"I'm being serious, TC," Skywarp pushed. "He's the only one who knows Screamer's here. He's the only one who knows we followed him. He probably even knows I spied on him! He probably knows I found out his plan to topple us, and because he's scared of us he's going to off us while we're alone."

Thundercracker _did_ laugh, this time. "Honestly, Skywarp, you should hear some of the words that come from your vocaliser sometimes. To start with, 'death squad'? Megatron would have to be pretty damn quick off the mark to have assembled an entire squad of ruthless killers in the time we've been gone, just to off a trio of 'noisy, scatterbrained airheads'. And since when has our _gracious leader_ ever sent someone else to do what _he_ _himself_ is so personally good at?" He grinned and shook his head. "Come on, Warp. If he wanted a bunch of incompetents like us permanently offlined he'd come and do it himself. All those centuries working for him, and you forget a critical part of his psychological makeup like that?" He paused, and his smile got a little bit more serious. "Is _this_ what's got you so completely messed up? You're… inventing nonexistent threats on our safety to torment yourself with?"

"You could stand to take me a bit more seriously every now and then."

"Yeah, I probably could. Right now, I'm taking the fact that poor Star is still bleeding out all over the floor a tiny bit _more_ seriously," Thundercracker got his head down again. "Priorities, Warp. You can stress yourself into a vibrating ball of worry later, just… try to focus for a breem or two, will you? Go see if any of this rubbish around the place could be useful."

Accumulating possibly-useful junk into piles did have a strangely calming effect on Skywarp. After a half-dozen breems had passed, there were a handful of vague, slumping heaps dotted around the floor, sorted into halfhearted themes – tools, temporary parts, cabling – and the dark Seeker's wings were no longer _buzzing_ with stress.

Thundercracker glanced up. He'd kept up his own pace of work the whole time, and was almost as liberally coated in fuel and joint lubricant as Skywarp. "You calmed down now?"

"Yes." Skywarp made a vain attempt at wiping his face clean with an old rag almost as dirty as he was.

"Stopped shaking?"

Skywarp held out a hand. "Steady as a rock."

"Dumb as one, too," Thundercracker gave him a small smile. "Find anything useful in that mess?"

"Tell me what you define 'useful' as, and I'll tell you if I found it."

"Soldering iron." The major vessels were mostly tied or crimped closed, but the minor vessels were awkward – so tiny and so profuse they'd take a small eternity to close off. "Pit, a new body to stick his spark in would be more useful."

"Not got one of them, but there was _something _which might be useful-" Skywarp was digging through the piles of supplies energetically enough to send debris literally flying. "I know I saw it here somewhere."

"What are you looking for?" Thundercracker didn't look up, face contorting in concentration. _There, got it._ The tiny crimp would hold for a little while.

"Aha!" Skywarp looked like he was wading, waist deep in the 'reject' pile. "Here."

Thundercracker eyed the pot of epoxy resin like it'd leap up and bite him if he reached out for it. "What's that for?" Skywarp and glue were familiar bedfellows, and usually associated closely with trouble.

"I was thinking. Did you know that humans superglue minor injuries up?" Skywarp gave the pot a little thrust and coaxed it into his friend's hand.

Of course Thundercracker knew - he'd been the one to tell Skywarp in the first place, and they'd spent an amusing couple of breems discussing it and the potential for asking Starscream to turn it into a weapon for them. (Although Thundercracker had been quick to absolve himself of involvement in Skywarp's subsequent gluing spree – everything on their commander's desk got glued into place, as did half a dozen pieces of strategically placed equipment along Nemesis' corridors, and an unfortunate Rumble, who'd picked the wrong time to recharge on one of the chairs in the command centre.)

"Well, we're never going to get all these little fuel lines tied off in time. If we slap some of this on, it might just do the trick… Seal them up so no more leaks out."

"How the slag will we get it all back _off_?" Thundercracker examined the brush, lip curled in a look of distaste, and watched as thick curds of partially-cured old epoxy dripped slowly from the bristles back into the pot.

"Who _cares_?" Skywarp had already busied himself trying to get the obnoxious substance to work as he'd imagined. "We can think about that later. If we don't do something, and sharpish, we'll just have one dead Screamer and a puddle of mixed fluids on the floor."

"Since when did _you_ become the fount of useless knowledge, anyway?" Retaining and attempting to use every tiny scrap of data that headed in his direction was usually Starscream's prerogative.

"Someone's got to take up the slack, right?" Skywarp glanced up from his gluing. "And since you two always say I'm useless at everything I do anyway, why shouldn't I add useless knowledge to my list of useless talents, too?"

Thundercracker felt a pang of unfamiliar guilt, and pretended he hadn't noticed the accusing crimson gaze that looked at him over his friend's chest. It was true that they teased him something merciless for his general lack of smarts, but if not for Skywarp and his odd "talent" for teleportation, Starscream would probably have bled out and expired right there in the park. Plus, shocking as it seemed, the glue _did_ seem to be working…

"Maybe we don't need a medic, after all," the blue Seeker mused. Although the patches of ugly yellow-grey resin weren't very appealing, Starscream wasn't looking _quite_ so atrocious. "Maybe we could fix him. We've done some pretty big field repairs for each other in the past, all we need to do is get him stable and back on his feet, then we can get him to instruct us how to finish the rest off."

"_Us_? Come on, we're already _doing_ 'field repairs', and a full refit is a whole different animal." Skywarp spread his hands. "I can barely remember the difference between a primary actuator and a tertial fuel pump, let alone get 'em in the right places-! And that's _ignoring _the fact we don't have the equipment to do it with in the first place."

"Well, what do you expect us to do? _Abduct_ a medic? 'Cause one sure as the Pit won't come willingly."

It had been meant in half-hearted jest, but Skywarp's face creased thoughtfully. "Well, we _could_…"

"Oh, _hey_, no! That was a _joke,_ Warp, don't you even think about it!" Thundercracker waved his arms, urgently. "State he's in? Can you see _any_ Autobot resisting the urge to tweak a few conveniently exposed wires and extinguish his spark altogether?"

"Well, we'll swipe a Neutral, then! What are _they_ going to do?" Skywarp scoffed. " 'Not get involved' at him? We could drop him off at a neutral hospital."

"Neutral doesn't mean they won't shoot us on sight," Thundercracker reminded him, tapping the insignia on his wings. "See these? _Remember_ these? Remember what any non-Decepticon does to us when _they_ see these? We won't get through the door before they mow us down."

"Well, maybe if they don't know for sure who we are," Skywarp mused. "We fooled the Autobots on Earth, and of all our enemies I guess they know us best of all. We're in a Neutral area, right now, so… maybe we can appeal to their better nature. I mean, think about it. They don't want to get involved in fighting, but they still espouse a load of silly Autobot ideals. Give everyone the benefit of the doubt and keep their fingers firmly crossed, right?" He plucked a blunt-ended pole from the mass of potential repair-parts he'd accumulated from around the warehouses, and carefully applied the edge to what remained of the scuffed purple emblem in his sick friend's wing. "Help me scratch these off."

"What? Hey, _hey_, just wait a second-!" Thundercracker looked horrified. "They're more than just a bit of paint-! He'll never forgive us!" he planted both hands down over the one remaining emblem on his wings.

"I hate to break it to you, TC, but we're not Decepticons, any more, remember?" Skywarp stared him down until he moved his hands. "These things don't mean anything, since we mutinied. Unless, I don't know, maybe you want to keep him here like this until his processors go into meltdown."

"Mutinied _on your insistence_," Thundercracker corrected, folding his arms, unkindly.

"I don't see why _you're_ so cut up about it, _you_ didn't want to join in the first place!" Skywarp snapped, pointing an irritable finger. "I just got you _out_, like you always _wanted_ to be!"

Thundercracker paused to think up a suitably acerbic retort, and the brief, heated silence between them was broken by a soft _drip…_ _drip… _from somewhere beside them.

They swapped tired looks.

"You know, arguing with each other probably isn't the most appropriate use of our time right now," Thundercracker observed, dropping to his knees to try and find the vessel that had sprung a leak, not watching as Skywarp lurched over to the morass of useless supplies to find something to pinch off the oozing fuel line. Every time they thought they'd got them all, another would reveal itself, and they weren't just crystallising off, either, not now coolant and lubricant and fuel had all got so slimily mixed up.

"Look, if it pains you so bad to scrub off his emblems without his say so, how about we get rid of our _own_ insignia, and try to look like concerned citizens? Does _that _meet with the approval of your overactive conscience?" Skywarp gave him a hurt scowl. "All we have to do is steal some paint, and we can masquerade as Neutrals. Nobody will be able to tell. We're not tetrajets, we're funny-looking Earth-creatures, and if we don't _tell_ them who we are, who's going to know?" Skywarp managed a thin smile at Thundercracker's lopsided look. "And I'm supposed to be the _stupid _one. I'm not stupid, I'm a _maverick_! You're just too blind to see the brilliance in my ideas."

Thundercracker groaned. "No, Warp, it's just making my brain hurt. They'll see through it instantly. _But_," he sighed. "It's the only idea we have. I still don't much care for the idea of _us_ going _to_ the hospital, but we could always persuade someone to come to _us_. Let's just get him stable, then we can see about how best to go incognito."

Starscream had drifted into a fitful doze while they argued. He'd managed to blank out the worst of the little niggly pinchy hurts his wing-mates were doling out, and only flinched if they were particularly vigorous – it was just too much effort to recoil too hard. The overall lack of energy had left him almost incapacitated. His processor was running so slowly it might as well have been offlined anyway, and a rolling cascade of system failures had begun to creep up his left side from his injured hip. His coolant system reported as essentially dry – there was enough to chill his cranial housing, but the rest of his body was overheating, and quietly shutting down. He groused softly under his breath, but most of his speech had already turned into incomprehensible electronic burble.

"What's that?" Skywarp asked, softly, leaning closer to the broken lips. What words existed in the babble were thin, full of static and hard to make out. "What do you mean? What blue stuff?"

"Warp? What's the matter?"

"I don't know. He's just rambling."

"About what?" Thundercracker glanced up, crimping a kink into a secondary fuel line.

"Something about… blue stuff?" Skywarp was frowning. "Any idea what he means?"

"You know, getting a coherent sentence out of him is hard enough on a normal day, without grilling him for information about his delirious ramblings."

"He mentioned it before, though. Something about… the landlord wouldn't give the blue stuff to him?" Skywarp frowned. "Do you think someone might have poisoned him?"

"What I _think_ is that he got so overcharged he could barely see, then got jumped on by a gang of Neutrals who thought it was too good an opportunity to miss. You're reading too much into this whole mess, Skywarp. First it was nonexistent termination squads, now it's imaginary poisons." A pause, and a shrug. "The poor guy's incoherent, at least let him get his brain functioning properly again before you go playing detective, Chief Inspector Skywarp." Thundercracker couldn't help a snicker. "Primus help us. We'd never solve _any _crimes, would we? There'd be a sky-high pile of unsolved case reports."

"You're neither fair, nor funny," Skywarp muttered.

A breem or two found the pair sitting on the floor, using damp rags to try and clean up some of the mess on their own paintwork. On his own, Skywarp had inadvertently succeeded in smearing himself into a fully-black Decepticon, prompting Thundercracker to finally stop fussing Starscream and go to give his wingmate a bit of help. Working together they didn't do much better, but it _felt _a little more comfortable.

"Well, at least we both _look_ the part," Thundercracker observed, pointing out their cloud's sort of murky silver lining, absently trying to buff a patch of grime off Skywarp's pale shoulder. He himself was more grey than blue. "Couple of scruffy, down-on-their-luck empties. Maybe the pity card will get us somewhere."

"Pfft." Skywarp couldn't summon the will to make a retort, too emotionally exhausted to do much except just enjoy his cleaning. "Maybe they'll give us some soap." He allowed himself the luxury of a few more Astro-seconds of polishing, then sighed, and pushed Thundercracker's hands away. "I guess I'll go out and see if I can't find a medic who'll give us a hand."

"Uh-uh." Thundercracker kept a hand on Skywarp's shoulder vent, both keeping him from getting up and using him as leverage to push himself to his feet. "My turn."

"But I owe-…"

"No you don't. You've already saved his life. It's my turn to be useful. Besides," Thundercracker smiled, wryly. "You don't do so well on the whole 'talking calmly with Autobots and not shooting them' part, if I remember right."

"It's only 'aggressive negotiations'!" Skywarp pouted.

"It's only _overkill_."

"But it'd be quicker!"

"Warp, you have this nasty habit of jumping in with all guns blazing instead of attempting to just come to a peaceful agreement, and you _know _our position is precarious enough without you helping get us an _Autobot _termination party at our doorstep."

Skywarp hunched his shoulders and sulked at the jibe.

"I'll be back as quick as I can, all right? Won't talk to too many strange mechs, and won't submit to the temptation to drink myself into oblivion. If nothing else, I'll bring energon." He patted Skywarp's head. "Think of that, little sparkling. Nice, cool, clean energon."

"Good luck," Skywarp's parting comment chased him hollowly out of the door.

Skywarp spent the next few breems in a very Starscream-like obsessive-compulsive haze of cleaning. He could never have been accused of being the _tidiest _mech in existence, and it was a bit of a lost cause in this bomb-site of a warehouse, but the circle of spilled fluids had been slowly getting to him, making him nervous and twitchy, and suddenly being alone with his dying wingmate sparked him into frenetic action. He'd scrubbed the floor half a dozen times before the sharp, high smell of coolant finally left his nares and he wasn't seeing phantom oil-drops everywhere he looked.

At least that terrible _drip_ping had stopped. Just about. Now Starscream had stopped shifting about, he'd stopped reopening all the tiny half-healed/glued wounds in his various systems.

Skywarp slumped at the table, and propped his head in his hands, watching as Starscream's optics flickered fitfully – never quite _on_, but never quite fully _off_ – and small, confused vocalisations came from his broken lips. He seemed… what? What came _after _delirious? Skywarp wasn't sure how to define it, but he sure seemed pretty out of it.

At last, the fevered optics dimmed in stasis, and the broken little noises ceased. Skywarp watched him for a breem or two longer, just to silence the morbid little voice in his mind that said _Screamer gonna go die now, Warp._ The occasional tiny movement reassured him that his wingmate was still in with a fighting chance. Now all he had to do was keep watch and wait for TC to get back with energon and a medic in tow.

If nothing else, it was nice to be allowed the luxury of wallowing in shame in privacy for a while. _What a Primus-damn idiot I looked. Poor TC must think I've completely lost it. _He winced and rubbed his temples. It felt like his own processors were about to spontaneously combust if he didn't just shut off all inputs for a few breems and give his poor abused brain the rest it was screaming out for. Every primary relay, every datacluster – Pit, even his _quaternary _stacks were filled to overflow with useless chaff inputs, and he wouldn't have been surprised to find he had filled up his deep-storage quinary and senary processors as well.

In the back of his mind, an alert had begun to chirp, softly. _Recharge needed_. He could offline the alarm and ignore it, of course, but then he'd already done that the last five times it had sounded and knew that if he did it much more, he'd end up collapsing.

_Just a couple of breems,_ he promised himself, folding his arms across the table and sliding slowly down on his crate. _That's all I need. Recharge a little, and defragment myself a bit of free space in my processors._ But his optics were offline and he was deep in recharge before his dark helm even touched his arms, long before he could set any wakeup alerts.

0o0o0o0o

"We need a word, landlord."

"A word?" the _Flywheel_'s proprietor looked up, and smiled. "Of course, Chief Inspector. How can I help you?" He'd been warned that the police were on their way, and had hastily destroyed all his supplies of Blue, as the Sleeper had instructed him a great many orns ago, when they first did business.

"We've had some unsettling reports I'd like you to clarify for us." The Chief Inspector was an Autobot of prodigious size and build, all royal blue and white enamel, and an impressive presence in the dingy room whose ceiling was barely high enough for him to stand upright. "We'd like to discuss what you sell here."

"What I sell? That's a strange thing to ask, you yourself gave me my vendors license. Nothing but high-quality fuels, just like it states," the landlord smiled. To his credit, if he was lying, he was smooth about it.

"I think you're slipping your patrons something a little more potent than energon, landlord," the Autobot said, bluntly, watching as his smaller colleague headed back behind the bar.

"Just what are you implying?" The landlord watched her, too. The idea of such terribly _noble_ Autobots planting the evidence to convict him was a pretty outrageous one, but stranger things had happened. "I've always been an honourable and respectable citizen. You even used to drink here! Do you take me for the sort to intoxicate my patrons?"

"When I used to patronise you, I would never have so much as thought to suspect you," the Chief Inspector agreed. "But I am not the one who suspects, landlord. My superintendent has taken the advice that you are, how can I put it? Straddling the law, not fully on the right side of it."

"Sir?" Both the landlord and the inspector turned to look at the constable who'd spoken up from behind the bar. "Could you come here a second?"

The landlord felt his smile slip askew. _They'd found something_. He'd destroyed all the Blue he could find, just as the Sleeper had instructed him to do if he sensed a raid, but maybe he'd missed one. _Couldn't have missed one! I only ever have a couple of spare cubes at a time. _

The officer had straightened up behind the bar with a small twinkling cube of Blue Prophet, and the landlord instantly knew the Sleeper had set him up. They wanted him out of the way-

"Ladies and Gentlemechs, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to drink up and head out," the chief boomed, and there was a muted flurry of grumbling. "The _Flywheel_ will be closing early today, and for the next few dozen orns. The landlord has some, ah, new business to attend to."

"What? You can't do that-!" The landlord grabbed the officer's arm, almost pleadingly. "It's hard enough to make a living at the best of times, you can't shut me down for no reason-… this is my whole livelihood! I'll have nothing!"

"Your opening times have been only temporarily cut short, landlord. A necessity while we investigate, I'm afraid. Constable? Please, take him into custody and return to the station with him."

"Please, you can't do this…! I'm innocent, I've been set up, I _swear_-"

"I'm sorry, barkeep, but we have to know for sure. _Somebody_ in your district has been pushing illegal narcotics. We're searching all establishments, and yours has unfortunately been highlighted by intelligence more than once." The Chief Inspector managed a small smile. "With luck, it will only be temporary. Once forensics has finished processing, you can have your establishment back."

0o0o0o0o

Starscream winced and forced himself to sit. He wasn't feeling so great – old aches permeated his body, newer aches starting up as his weight came to bear on his systems again. What had happened? He examined his hands, briefly – double vision again. Great. Hook should have fixed _that_ long ago. Should have fixed all these fractures in his armour, too. Huh. Always had it in for him, that Unicron-spawned offspring of a-… hnnh. Some perfectionist. He was just _slow_. Slow, because he couldn't do _any_-fragging-thing without a _manual_.

There seemed to be a fault with his internal thermoregulators, too. He was uncomfortable, excess heat building up around pumps and actuators, but his coolant fans still hadn't kicked in. Maybe it was a fault in the sensor coil instead of the refrigerant system – giving him falsely elevated readings. He frowned and concentrated, and got one cooling fan to come on. _Better, better. _It hissed and spat coolant, for some reason, spraying a thin vapour of sharp-smelling refrigerant over his face, but at least it was working, and a pleasant chill spread down his uncomfortable left side.

Now. To business. He shouldn't be laying here, he should be dragging his afterburners down to the repair bay and whining at Hook to get him fixed. Whining was his forte, after all – of all his skills, whining got the quickest results. (Probably just to shut him up, but that was beside the point.)

He slid himself off the side of the berth, and clambered unsteadily to his feet. _Hey, no fair, stop moving the floor-_ He tottered round full circle before managing to recover his balance enough to even attempt to locate a door, two bright patches in his blurring, crazing vision. His balance was reeling – half his gyroscopes had stopped altogether and the remaining half were unbalanced, skipping.

He aimed for the leftmost bright patch and collided with a wall, but was undeterred – worked his way along towards the second bright patch and almost fell on his face when the wall vanished from under his fingers. The bright patch turned out to be brighter than he'd counted on, and his double-vision temporarily overloaded, crazed all the way into static, but he clung to the doorframe and waited it out. Pain was sharp as an attenuated laser between his eyes. The hurt was sharp, but sweet – gave him something to help maintain his focus (or at least, the illusion of it). _Where's the repair bay anyway? Got to be around here somewhere. _

In some deep-down, hidden part of his psyche, he _knew_ that his loyal wing-mates had been trying to help him, and _knew_ he should stop. But the greater part of him – the noisy, broken, delirious part – compelled him to keep moving, through the door and out onto the quay, then left onto the street and away. _Hook. Repair. Refuel. _The words repeated in a dull cyclical rhythm underneath every fleeting thought that scattered its way across his questing consciousness. _Hook. Repair. Refuel. _His primary was still dutifully pumping fuel down to his right thruster, where his diagnostics said there was a deficit, but most of the energon it pumped was escaping through a hidden tear in his femoral fuel line, running out through a chink in his battered armour and down his leg. He seemed unaware of the bright, spotty trail he was leaving behind himself.

Now-… oh come on, this wasn't fair. Who'd moved the damn repair bay? He thought he should have covered the right distance to be about there, but the door was missing – there was just a sheet of something hard under his fingertips. He huffed at the wall, a wordless jangle of static, and continued on down it, leaving a stuttering trail of energon from his hands.

The world was already swimming in static. Lightpoles were brighter spots in the snow, but the walkways themselves had vanished from beneath his feet. Sounds came to his ears as if from a great distance, echoing down a long hollow plastic tube that someone was hitting with bits of iron, and there was a dull, whiney buzz underneath it all – or was that his own vocaliser? His bent wing meant he tottered shoulder-first into the wall on his left more than once, leaving a trail of bright paint transfers and spots of semi-set epoxy resin.

The first of the _red_ alerts had begun to lose power and shut off when he slammed bodily into something unyielding.

"…whoa!" there was an exclamation of surprise and something with powerful arms caught him before he could fall back onto his aft. It added something else, but he was unable to process the words.

"-hnh," he grunted, and tried to circumnavigate the person-thing-whatever, but it was mobile and kept its grip on his arms – which was probably a good thing, because the actuators in his right knee failed, just then, and seconds later his left hip joined in. He'd have ended up on his face in the gutter had the thing not steadied him, and he'd certainly not have got back _up_.

"…desse'h…" he slurred, incoherently, wanting to point an arm but doing little more than flap his hand uselessly at his side, determined to convey where he wanted to go. "…dess'nhh-…!" Advanced linguistics like 'take me to the nearest Decepticon base' was beyond his processor's current capacity – but that probably saved his life, because he'd have greyed out long before getting there.

The thing made more questioning noises, but now even the wordless sounds were finding it difficult to filter through the grit and dust that must have been packed into his audio pickups. It felt as if a curtain had been pulled down across his optics, the snowy world growing dimmer. Maybe night was falling. Yes. Maybe he was mistaken, maybe he _was _on Earth, after all, lost out in the wilderness somewhere, and night was closing in, and this snowy static actually _was_ that horrible muffling cold wet meteorological phenomenon the fleshbags liked so much.

At least the pain was lessening. _At last_. He'd have smiled if he'd had any motor control left. The sharp headache had eased back to a low ache at the base of his helm, and he couldn't even feel those acid-etched flames that had been eating at his poor wings any more. The hands holding him seemed to be doing so from a great distance – or were they just wrapped in layers of cotton wool? Perhaps it would have been easier to tell if he'd been able to feel his arms. Or his feet. Or anything.

He was almost past consciousness when his body went into convulsions – hard, frantic full-body jerks that finished off what Fatigue's thugs had started.

…but then all was blissfully still, and silent.

--

**A/N: **because the little police constable gets a bigger role later on, I doodled up a quick sketch of her:

keaalu dot deviantart dot com slash art slash Pulsar-colours-83425936

"Traditional robots" aren't my forte, but I hope she's halfway convincing in spite of her lopsidedness. ;)


	5. Chapter 5

**Screaming Blue Murder – Chapter Five**

**A/N:** Okay, we're back to a reasonable-ish length, this time.

Yes, Nightsun is a bit of a punnish name – the "NiteSun" is the big spotlight on the bottom of a real police helicopter – but eh. ;) Drawing Nightsun at the moment - might give him a bigger part to play, later on? Not sure.

My subconscious wants to write fluff. :huffs: …although if my notes are anything to go by, the fluff is quite happily writing itself. Geh.

In case anyone's interested, this pair are Spotweld and Forceps:

keaalu . deviantart . com / art / Forceps-and-Spotweld-82462635

* * *

The landlord was in on this whole mess?

In the alley running behind the _Flywheel_, a fumingly angry Thundercracker stood eavesdropping, flattened against the wall and only barely out of sight. He'd returned to the ill-fated bar because it had been his only lead, and the landlord had seemed so friendly and keen to help, but hadn't expected there to already be such a heavy Autobot police presence. Thank Primus he'd had the foresight to land a little further up the street, where the ground was more accessible, his noise muffled by the overhanging properties, and _walk _up the alleyway. If nothing else, the officers would have heard the unholy shriek of his afterburners, and while he himself wasn't afraid of this raggedy bunch of action-starved Autobots, he felt it'd be _imprudent_ to draw overt attention to the fact he was here. Making a Decepticon presence here too obvious would lead to a security clampdown, and wouldn't help his wingmate.

Lurking by a window, he first wondered if they'd somehow found out what had happened to Starscream, but no – listening in, it sounded like they were looking for something, and had found whatever it was. The landlord had rapidly gone from self-assured slick charm to gibbering nerves, and pleaded miserably for a moment or two, but the giant Chief Inspector had flicked a hand – dear _Primus_ was that Autobot ever a monstrous size – and an angular little constable had stepped in and obediently arrested the landlord.

The landlord was in this from the start. Skywarp had questioned him, and he'd claimed innocence. Sworn he knew nothing. Such a blasé, barefaced lie! Thundercracker set his jaw, angrily. _I'll kill him. I swear, I'll come back here and kill him. Rip his pumps clean out through his lying __mouth__- _

_Energon first_, his conscience reminded him. _Energon and medics. Righteous vengeance comes after._

He'd need to find a new supplier. There were plenty of small bars in the neighbourhood, all seedier-looking little hovels than this one, but Pit, he was so filthy they'd probably not even _notice_ his insignia. Taking off here would probably be unwise, though. If the Autobots noticed him at this sort of close range – which they undoubtedly would, flight-capable engines were incapable of such a thing as "quiet" – they'd probably _recognise_ him, and he could do without the gunfire that'd probably chase him. Getting shot down would be far from helpful.

0o0o0o0o0

When they'd told her that morning that she was going to be helping out on a major investigation into the noxious narcotic 'Blue' that had invaded her district's peaceful streets, Constable Pulsar had been elated. She'd spent most of the last vorn or so patrolling the same dull old streets and filling in the same dull old paperwork, and the monotony had her close to screaming. Exciting daydreams of running street battles with Decepticons, of heroic discoveries, of releasing the public from the chains of their addiction, it had her bubbling with excitement the whole journey to their destination.

Her elation rapidly evaporated when it turned out that it was all just a fancy name for a different sort of monotony. A few astro-seconds spent searching a ramshackle old bar, and a quick arrest of the proprietor, and ooh, look at that, we're done here, everybody back to the station to give forensics space to work. Oh, and here's some more paperwork.

The landlord wasn't a particularly co-operative mech, now his livelihood was under threat, and had boarded the transport back to the station noisily and unwillingly, in spite of all the heavy weaponry on display. It had left Pulsar irritable enough that she at first took the dull background rumble to be the start of a pressure headache, not the departing roar of powerful jet engines-

Wait. _Jet_ engines? The only big mech here was the Chief, a well-armoured riot truck, and his engines had a deep _thrum_, not a high screaming wail of anger like was dwindling in the background. The grav-cycle cast her gaze skywards, shielding her eyes, and finally spotted the departing blue arrow. Was that a Seeker? The format wasn't _entirely _correct, but she couldn't think what else it might be. What was it doing here? "Hey, Sarge?" she turned to her superior. "Sergeant Nightsun? Had we asked for extra air support?"

"_Extra_ air support?" Nightsun was a sleekly-built navy and gold mech who'd done a stint on Earth and picked up a neat little helicopter alt-mode. He was finishing directing the cluster of smaller construction mechs as they temporarily boarded up the _Flywheel_'s doors. "No. Why would we need air support in the first place?"

"Just… curious. Looks like there was a flier hanging around." She pointed at the dwindling arrow.

He followed her arm, and his expression instantly soured, rattling his folded rotors like a warning. "Primus damn it, I should have suspected there'd be Decepticons lurking in the shadows."

"What? Decepticon?" She flashed her warning lights, involuntarily, alarmed. "How can you tell?"

"How can you _not_? Come on. Aside from yours truly, of course, a competent aerial machine like _that_ is nearly always going to be a Decepticon, and seeing one hanging around here isn't exactly a surprise." He gave her a look. "Goes to prove they have more than a hand in this whole mess, I suppose. We'll have to keep a closer eye on the neighbourhood. Maybe put out a patrol or two, see what we can find," he offered a smile. "What do you know, Pulse, looks like you might have just got out of the paperwork."

0o0o0o0o0

Something felt… odd. The warehouse was still quiet, but it wasn't as reassuring as Thundercracker thought it would have been. There seemed to be smears of that unholy fuel/coolant/lubricant mix on the street, and the only way it could have got there would be for things to have gone awry again. Had they been found?

Not really wanting to look, because he knew he wasn't going to like what he found, the blue Seeker sidled up to the doorway, and glanced inside.

The scene of devastation was thankfully only the same Skywarp-induced devastation from earlier, and the black Seeker himself looked fine. Obviously, they hadn't been attacked. Skywarp was completely oblivious to the world, lost in recharge at the table; one arm had slid off the table and now dangled between his legs, the other had been pillowing his dark head but he'd shifted so now his arm pinched against his vocaliser, making it buzz, almost like snoring.

…what was _worrying_ was the empty tabletop and trail of bright drops of energon out through the open doorway.

"Skywarp-?!" Thundercracker hadn't meant to exclaim quite so loudly.

"What-who-? I didn't-" Startled into wakefulness, Skywarp promptly fell the remainder of the way off the table. "Whosat? Who's attacking us?!" His cannons whined automatically to life and he crashed out from underneath the table, looking like he firmly expected the entire Decepticon army – or maybe one of his imaginary 'death squads' – to be in their one room.

"Whoawhoawhoa," Thundercracker took cover behind the wall. "It's me, it's just me…! Stand down, Warp, for Primus sake-…!" Highly-strung Seekers were prone to shoot-first-question-later at the _best_ of times, let alone still half in recharge and spooked.

After a moment of standing and staring, lips pulled back in a snarl, optics narrowed, cannons raised, the scales finally fell from Skywarp's half-online optics, and recognition and relief dawned in his gaze. "TC-… you could have _warned_-"

"Where is he?" Thundercracker interrupted.

"What? Where's who?" Skywarp straightened, confused, but his gaze went automatically to their makeshift operating table anyway. "…aw, _slag_."

They followed the trail of droplets at a jog, ignoring the way they were given as wide a berth as possible. Although the opinion was clearly that two grim-faced Decepticon Seekers could hardly be up to anything good, their current public avoidance was only partly to do with their reputation – Skywarp was being particularly careless where he put his wings, and had sent at least three hapless ground-pounders reeling as he barged through them.

"He can't have got far," Skywarp insisted, softly, gaze fixed on the ground and scouring the scuffed stone and metal for any traces of spilled lubricant. Starscream's trail was easy enough to follow. "Can't have done. He could barely stand up, and he was completely out of his processors anyway. He can't have got far!"

"Steady, Warp," Thundercracker cautioned. Skywarp's mindset was no small cause for concern, lately. "Don't you go crazy on me too, now."

The trail of droplets abruptly halted at a junction between thoroughfares – although it didn't just _stop_, it stopped with a little flurry of various colours, like a starburst grenade. As if he'd finally run out of energy, collapsed, and after laying here for a breem or two his remains had been taken away-

"No." Skywarp was acutely aware of his coolant creeping up round the back of his helm, like icy fingers in his brain. "He can't have stopped here for this long- he's only been gone a few breems!"

"There was someone else here," Thundercracker observed, from his kneeling position next to the halo of spilled fluid, and used his finger to draw an invisible line around a large, foot-sized clear patch outlined by a thin rim of energon, and similar little lines a short distance down the pavement. "Look. Footprints. Not enough to follow for far, but at least it proves someone found him."

"He's been abducted? Who'd abduct an injured Decepticon?!"

"Maybe someone took him to a hospital," Thundercracker forced a smile. "Solved our problem for us. Typical of old Screamer, huh?"

"Dammit," Skywarp sighed, miserably. "I messed up good this time, huh, TC?"

"What?" Thundercracker glanced up, and pulled a face. "Well… kinda, yeah. We both did. Should never have gone off to run errands while we weren't fully operational ourselves and could keep an eye on him," he drew himself back to his feet. "But _this_ wasn't your fault, Warp. Calm down about it."

"It's _all_ my fault," Skywarp disagreed, softly. "If I'd not dragged you here, he wouldn't have got mad at us and gone out alone. And if I hadn't gone to sleep, he wouldn't have been able to stagger off like this." His features contorted briefly into a miserable little pout. "Frag it, TC. I thought I could help, but I just killed him."

"Whoa, whoa, come on, Warp. We already did 'crazy paranoid' once today, remember?" Thundercracker's hand on his arm was a vaguely stabilising sensation. "We don't know he's dead. I'm pretty confident in the idea he isn't. We've just got to see if we can track down whoever found him, right? We already know their shoe-size! Come on, CSI Skywarp. Let's get to work."

"And you say _I_ watch too much rubbish on television," Skywarp groused, but his spirits had recovered a tiny bit, and he followed.

0o0o0o0o0

"Spotweld? If you're here, I need a hand…! And energon, as much as you can get as quick as you can get it."

Spotweld lifted his head from his study. Sounded like Forceps – at long last. She was late! But she thankfully sounded uninjured. His relief was palpable – he'd been on the very cusp of contacting his friend in the police force, just to check there were no reports of big green females having been attacked. Ordinarily he wouldn't have been too worried – his friend was designed for surgical medicine, which meant she was not only heavily-built but also very physically powerful, a necessity for a career choice that involved manipulating large, unwieldy bits of broken machinery, and every bit as _feminine_ as a sack of wrenches. But, these were no longer 'normal' times, and he'd seen plenty of bigger and stronger mechs in the Accident and Emergency Department recently, apparently having been attacked in the streets.

"You do know I don't like you doing night shift?" he called back, over his shoulder. "And you know you had me worried you'd been assaulted?"

She ignored the accusatory tone in his words. "Did you _hear_ me, Spots, or did you just tune it out into the background like usual?" Her voice was irritable, heavy as a roll of thunder. "I need your help with something, and that's 'need' as in '_right now_'."

Spotweld twisted in his seat. "What could be _so urgent_ that you couldn't tell me you were-" The rest of the words died unspoken in his throat.

His friend stood in the doorway, carrying slumped in her arms a misshapen cluster of dirty spare parts that – with a little effort – resolved into a body. It dangled as limply as a sparkling's toy, loose arms and legs, dark helm lolling back on a slack neck, and against the big green female's bulk it _looked_ almost like a damaged toy. As he watched, a tremor stared up in one foot, gradually working its way up the pale leg until it infected the rest of the body, wheezing a fine mist of mixed fluids out of the damaged mech's intakes.

"Any time you're ready, Spotweld," she barked, startling her friend back into motion. "Or did you _want_ me to stand like an idiot and watch him expire in my arms?"

Spotweld virtually _launched_ himself off his seat. "Energon, right-" It was a bad sign if Forceps resorted to yelling – she was usually more than capable of making her irritation clear in quiet ways, like _snarking_ or the _Glare of Impending Doom_. Yelling usually indicated she was worried, and dangling at the end of her tether.

Forceps shook her head, and turned away to the small spare room they had towards the back of the property – there was a spare recharge berth in there, a hangover from their student days, and it'd probably be just big enough for their unexpected visitor. She carefully deposited the unfamiliar mech onto the lightly-padded surface, as if anticipating it'd fall instantly to pieces if she wasn't treating it like it was newly-sparked, and made sure the broken limbs were all untwisted. It was obviously considerably more sturdily designed than it looked (it _looked_ like it was all broken epidermal plates held together with thin rinds of dirty old epoxy resin), because it had already taken a fantastic degree of punishment and (until a breem or two ago) had still been mobile.

The flier was of indeterminate make, even pretty indeterminate gender. It had been first battered to a dented, dull-coloured hulk, then epoxied back together so badly it was a wonder all its joints hadn't seized. Frag, it was more _glue_ than _armour_, right now. It looked like it had crawled out of a recycling mill and fallen into a vat of glue, then somehow got out into the street where it had staggered along in this mostly-comatose condition until colliding with her and resuming the process of falling to pieces. Primus, perhaps a recycling plant _was_ where it had come from. Baiting the Empties had become something of a sport for the less socially-conscious younger wannabe-Decepticons around this suburb – not quite on a par with pit-fighting, but some of the deaths she'd read about in the news had been particularly gruesome. Managing to seek help in this condition was a testament to its tenacity, if nothing else.

It made her uneasy to look at it, though. There were purplish splotches on what remained of its wings, and she was sure it had been mumbling about Decepticons when she found it. Forceps was a Neutral, and dedicatedly so – would never turn a needy machine away from her table, no matter where it had come from, and she wasn't the sort of machine just to pass by the injured and ignore them. Unfortunately, as her friends had informed her on countless occasions, she lacked as much as a single political circuit in her entire programming. She did what she judged to be right, and hang the consequences if someone else disagreed – and she _knew_ there'd be _plenty_ of disapproving noises from her Autobot friends when they found out she was willingly assisting a wounded _Decepticon_. (If, of course, that truly _was_ what the poor brute was.)

"Somebody sure beat the slag out of the poor thing, eh, Sepp?" Spotweld had reappeared at her shoulder, juggling energon and feed-lines. "Where did it-… er, he? – come from?"

Forceps scratched the back of her square head, and pulled a face. "I don't know. I ran into it-… ran into _him _at a junction. Literally." She indicated the red and white transfers that remained on her own green armour from their abrupt introduction.

"He was still self-motile?" Spotweld inclined his head, already hunkering down on the left side to examine the worst-looking wounds, where the wing was so painfully twisted and a great plaque of exterior plating was missing. By contrast to the solidly-built Forceps, the orange mech was a gangrel creature – more lightly built, with a long neck and long legs, and with ceramo-polymer composite armour instead of the usual metallic alloy, but he was large in the torso, and stood even taller than her. He was a "polymorph protoform", an Emergency Medical Technician lacking an alt-mode altogether but with the ability to divide himself partially in half down his midline and "be in two places at once"; his arms had already separated out into four separate limbs to give him a bit more flexibility. "What do you think they were trying to achieve? Whoever it was that put all this glue on here?"

"Non-medical emergency repairs. I guess they used what they had to hand to try and stop the leaks." She was already untangling their under-used emergency feed cable. "Probably saved his life in the short term, but it'll make repairs harder."

"So you're going to help him?"

"Nobody else looked like they were going to," she agreed, opening up panels and trying to find a good place to hook in a temporary feed line. Once they'd got him stabilised they could think about repairs. "He must have been passed by about twenty others who didn't even spare him a glance."

"But you _are_ a bit of a sap, anyway, Sepp, so that's hardly diagnostic?" Spotweld's 'hemi-cortex' meant his halves were never absolutely in agreement, and as such he was always a little uncertain of his abilities and had a tendency to turn every statement into a question, regardless of whether it actually needed an answer. It often led to pregnant pauses in conversations while people worked out if he was asking for an opinion, but Forceps had shared lodgings with him for long enough to know his quirks. "Well, what are we going to do with him? Shouldn't we take him to hospital? He looks like he could do with it – no offence intended to your surgical skills – because where are _we_ going to get materials for repairs?

"No, no hospital. Bad idea. Right now I only trust you and me to sort him out," she hesitated, and gave Spotweld a sneaky glance, wanting to see how he reacted to finding out their patient's probable faction. "He was mumbling about Decepticons, I think. Not that he was very easy to make out."

"Do you think they did it to him?" Odd figure-of-eight shaped green optics glanced up to meet her gaze. "Wouldn't put it past 'em, right? Seems like their handiwork?"

"I think he _is_ a Decepticon," Forceps disagreed. "Look at his wing. Purplish splotches. Could be their insignia, but… too scuffed to make it out for sure. Looks like someone tried to scratch it off."

Spotweld hesitated, and there was a long, awkward pause before he finally spoke up again. "No offence, Sepp, but I'm not sure I like the idea of having a Decepticon officer in our spare berth," he said, flatly. At least both his halves were in agreement abut _that_. "We ought to get him to a hospital, Sepp. Not try treating him here. They might even help him."

Forceps shook her head. "Most of our colleagues are Autobots, remember? And he's the enemy. They'd probably not even give him the dignity of a peaceful death." She gave him a hard look. "If you don't want to _treat_ him, I completely respect your wishes, but I _will_ be helping and I _will_ be doing it here." She offered a smile – faint, but it was better than the pinched scowl. "I know I can trust you, Spots. I just want to know how _far_."

He made a face, knowing she was essentially daring him to call the police down on her. "You're a hard machine to argue with," he joked, tiredly. "I'm not sure how much I'll be able to help with, but I won't be notifying the authorities, if that's what you meant?"

"I knew I could count on you," she gave him an affectionate slap on the back and almost sent him sprawling, then stood to fetch energon now she was happy the line was securely in place. "What about work?" Connecting up fuel feeds was something she could very nearly do still in recharge. "You have a shift today, right?"

"Not until later, and I can probably call in a favour from Halogen?" Spotweld glanced up, watched as the pale violet crept its way down the narrow tube. "He still owes me from the last time I covered his shift, when his cousin got taken sick?"

"You can count on him?"

"Almost as much as I do you, Sepp-" Spotweld was going to say more, but a funny little noise attracted his attention. Rough, staticky, sounded almost like words-

"…what-… whhh-…" Incongruously blue optics flickered, very briefly. "…whurrrami…?"

"Oh, what in- Sepp-… Sepp!" Spotweld just about _leaped_ away. "He's awake-!"

Forceps promptly abandoned the flexible pouch she'd been hanging. "Awake? Damn. Not helpful." She crouched at the head of the berth and watched as the blue optics first flickered, then managed to remain online – dim, awkward, but relatively steady. "Go see if we still have any Virathesis and that old stasis mantle somewhere – I don't want to go probing about inside his chest for the relevant switches to get him offlined, just yet."

The nebulous blue gaze roved briefly over her face before finding her optics. The broken flier lifted his head off the berth and twitched the fingers of one hand, contorted his shoulders forwards. "…whhho-… who'm…" He looked like he was struggling to sit up.

Forceps planted a firm but gentle hand on the broken chest and tried to coax him to lay flat again. Blue optics studied her but didn't look like they comprehended. "You shouldn't move about," she instructed, softly. "We need you to keep still so we can do your repairs." She flicked an irritable hand at Spotweld, silently urging him to hurry up with the stasis mantle.

"…but-… who…"

"My name is Forceps, I'm a surgeon. You're safe here."

"…sss… uhhh." He relaxed his head back to the berth with a low _thud_. "Have-… have to-… what…?"

"Try not to exert yourself. You can ask all the questions you like when you're stable."

"…but who…" The blue optics narrowed in a frown. "…who'm'i… ahhh-…" His shoulders gave a convulsive little _jerk_, and the optics offlined as the arms began to tremble-

"Slag it," Forceps swore, and shifted her grasp from gentle restraint to support as another feeble fit of convulsions racked the damaged body. "Spotweld, hurry the frag up with that mantle!"

The poor broken creature had insufficient energon in its system to maintain consciousness for very long, but apparently it had just enough to keep sending it into spasm – this was the third such fit she'd seen in the space of a cycle or two. And every time he fitted, he'd split some of the old tears in its pipework back open, and more fuel would spurt from the damaged lines. She still wasn't entirely sure what was causing it, but it was probably a systemwide instability because there was so little fuel left in there – a remote system would online, report a deficit, pumps would kick in, but nothing would happen and the straining mechanisms would gradually go from tremors to full-body jerks. She had to get it stabilised and stop the fits, which would probably require a considerable transfusion, as there was no way it was going to be _drinking_.

At last the trembling died away. While Spotweld introduced the viral anaesthetic into the energon feed, Forceps fitted the mantle in place – it was a wide black collar that fitted snugly around the neck and stopped unconscious commands being transmitted to the body. Enforced stasis _did_ make repairs harder – testing that circuits were patent was tricky unless the patient was awake – but there was no way they'd do it otherwise.

"I think we're going to be mopping the floor for a while," Forceps pointed out, watching grimly as essential fluids continued to drip slowly out through the new tears and Spotweld hurried to patch them with quick, precise little welds. "And I think there's a problem with his processors."

"What makes you think that?" Spotweld didn't look up. "You don't think he should be asking where he is, who his helpers are?"

"I don't think he was asking who _we_ were," Forceps disagreed, softly. "I think he said 'who am _I_'…"

0o0o0o0o0

For the second time in as many orns, the two functional members of Starscream's trine were chasing shadows. The aerial search had been pretty fruitless – whoever had _found_ their wingmate had obviously not hung around outside for long, so after a quick lick of paint (and a lot of grumbling) to cover up their insignia, they'd resorted to trying the local hospitals, the doctors' surgeries, even homeless hostels, just in case he'd been brought in.

'Going well' was not an accusation that could have been levelled at the project. Thundercracker had made no headway, and as for Skywarp, well… Thundercracker had walked through the door to their temporary base of operations on the quayside to find Skywarp on the floor, doing some sort of minor repair on his ankle. It didn't take much to put two and two together, but even then he still couldn't work out _why_.

"I already know I'm going to regret asking this, Skywarp, but… how did you manage to get yourself bodily ejected from a _hospital_?"

Skywarp looked up from where he was microwelding a snapped actuator cable in his ankle back together. "They have one big ugly mofo of a security guard," he replied, grumpily.

"And what, he just… didn't like the look of you? What?"

A pinkish flicker of humiliation passed through Skywarp's optics. "…he caught me going through patient notes." He flexed his ankle, satisfied, and closed up the armour.

"I knew I should have made you teleport _me_ in there," Thundercracker groaned, fetching himself a cube of energon from the hidden crate they were using for storage.

"Hey, I did _try_ just asking at the front desk!" Skywarp waved an arm. "Even with my insignia covered up, they suspected me. So I decided to 'CSI' it and nose about. And he caught me." Shrug. "So much for using my initiative, I guess." He accepted the cube that Thundercracker had offered, and gazed glumly into its depths for a moment or two before setting it to one side. "I don't like this, TC. I don't like being on our own, I don't like feeling responsible, and I don't like not having anyone to blame."

"Please, not this again." Thundercracker placed the cube back into his hands. "Just drink that, and go get a few breems rest," he instructed. "And if you don't want to go recharge, at least give my poor audio receptors a rest, and shush up?"

Skywarp turned the cube over and over for a little while, then shook his head. "Don't want it."

"You'd rather just fall out of the sky next time we run an aerial search pattern? 'Cause that'll be real helpful, Warp. Shut up and drink."

"Seriously. I don't want it." The cube got put back down on the floor.

"All right," Thundercracker planted his palms on Skywarp's shoulders and gave him a shove into the crate behind him, leaning his weight gently against him to stop him wriggling off. "I'm tired of this. Since when did you get so emotionally wishy-washy? Either you learn to absolve yourself of blame and buck up, or I'm leaving you behind, and – Primus help me, Warp, I'm not above shooting you. Because you're being _no damn use whatsoever_ right now."

Skywarp flinched very slightly, but resolutely met the angry crimson gaze.

"Look, channel all that anger against someone who deserves it, if you can't let it go!" Thundercracker sat back on his thrusters. "It's _Megatron's_ fault we're all here, remember? He instigated it, he set us up – Pit, even _Starscream_ fell for it, you can hardly blame yourself for getting caught out with a double game even Screamer and his machinations couldn't see." He hunched his shoulders and folded his wings, and settled himself into a convenient corner to doze. "Now drink your damn energon and get some rest, all right?"

Skywarp sat and pouted at the lilac cube by his side, before finally giving in and taking a sip. "TC?"

"What?" Thundercracker steeled himself for more whining.

"What's 'absolve' mean?"


	6. Chapter 6

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Six**

**Disclaimer: **As ever, author neither claims nor (intentionally) implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any other character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. Blabla, etc etc, und so weiter.

**A/N: **Please, tell me if the OCs are taking over too much. :( I didn't even REALLY want to use any, at the start, let alone :gasp: _females_, but my subconscious has run so far away with the plot that I can't really do it without them, now. Trying to tone their involvement down a little at the moment. (Mainly because I'm kinda scared THIS will happen:

keaalu dot livejournal dot com slash 176682 dot html (Warning: I have had it levelled at me that this is a terrifying image))

Thanks to AegisFox (on Livejournal) for helping me give the Chief Inspector Hardline a name. ;) Superintendent "Boxer" is named after a German APC. Considering bringing in a couple of more familiar Autobots, but I'm not sure they'd be even less in-character than our little Seekers. Yay, nay? Biscuits to those who recognise where the "Scarlet" moniker came from (aside from a synonym for Red). ;) Poor Starscream, he'll get called by his own name eventually. :P

* * *

Getting their scarlet houseguest stable was more difficult than either surgeon or EMT had anticipated. Working in the well-lit well-stocked well-staffed Emergency Department and Main Theatres allowed a machine to lose sight of just how tricky emergency repairs could be. After all, if you had to whip out and replace a pump to keep a mech ticking over, then that was what you did – quick, easy, efficient. 'Working from home', with no supplies aside from the very very basics, had basically turned this into a high-quality patch-job – perfectly serviceable repairs for the short term, but still just temporary patches.

The new energon feed-line into one of his primary conduits was working well, but he was still leaking, violet fluid still sputtering in fits and starts from broken lines – stasis or not, he was still fitting, occasionally, opening the weaker repairs back up. He'd taken a good four, almost five cubes worth already and it had only just begun to dent the red symbols flashing everywhere on the monitors Forceps had set up, but then the equivalent of about two cubes worth of fuel _was _either on the floor or on them.

Spotweld was busy living up to his name, his 'Spot' half applying tiny, precise welds to the ends of all the fuel lines that still remained open. He had already 'divided his attention', peeling apart down the midline all the way to his torso, the split only halting once it reached his waist, and his odd "figure-of-eight" shaped green optics had parted into two to ensure he maintained a good depth perception. He had a strange, Picasso-esque look about him, and wasn't particularly attractive at all, but he was quick and efficient and concerns over his aesthetics seemed irrelevant. Spot was busy working on the more heavily injured left-side, while Weld was checking coolant lines on the right.

Keeping the Seeker steady during his 'episodes' was a frustrating and regular but not difficult task. Both machines were big – certainly taller and more massive than the lightly-built flier – and maintaining a firm but gentle hold was made easier by his sorely weakened state, but the seizures were unpredictable and Spotweld had drawn thin laser-scorches across the red torso at least twice when a fit took him by surprise.

Keeping him _cool_ was more problematic. Energon was volatile, sure, and the place had taken on a high, unpleasant fuel-smell, but it was not half as volatile as refrigerant, and Weld had already determined that his coolant lines had evaporated dry some time ago. They'd set the air conditioners to "chill", which was going some way to stopping the periodic overheating, and he seemed to be keeping cool so long as his pumps weren't operating, remote systems instead being fed by gravity, but the instant he became wakeful again, they'd have to ensure he was capable of maintaining homeostasis for himself.

At least the bleeding had stopped, at last. His levels had settled back out – still dangerously low, but stable – and the flickering, crashing red lights on the monitors had gradually begun to fade back to a reluctant amber. More reassuringly, he'd only fitted once in the last few cycles. Forceps guessed that could be called "making headway", if you squinted and didn't look too closely.

"I guess getting the right supplies should probably be our primary concern," Weld observed, glancing up at Forceps, who was staring at the displays and looking half-unconscious herself. "I mean, he looks like he'll need _all_ his fluids purged and replaced – he's probably got more energon than lubricant in his oil-lines, and more coolant in his fuel-lines than he's got in his cooling system. Sepp? Hey, Sepp, you with us?"

She stirred, gave her head a twitch. "What?"

He smiled, grimly. "I hope you were planning on this being a major side-project to day surgery, because I think he's going to _be_ one." He watched her squint and cycle cool air in an effort to wake up a little. "You look slagged, Forceps. Gonna go and get a bit of recharge before you fall on top of him?"

"I'm fine." She rose to her feet, and straightened her back, stretched her shoulders – a series of dull _pops_ came from internal connectors. "Okay, so fine is a bit of a push. Functional." She picked up one of the few unused cubes, and settled back against the wall with a sigh. Truth be told, she felt half-dead, herself – she'd been heading home from a tiring night-shift at work when she'd walked into their unexpected house-guest, and had already been depleted. Now, over half an orn later, she had plenty of chirping alerts going on in her own mind, instructing her to recharge. Wouldn't do to slump into recharge in the middle of a critical procedure. The little sip of pale violet fuel felt like nectar – a balsam for her poor, tired circuits.

Spot glanced up and gave her a knowing green stare, but didn't speak.

"All right, all right, I'll admit defeat. I'm going to get my head down for a while," she said, at last, boosting her mass back away from where she'd slumped against the wall. "You happy to keep an optic on him while I catch a cycle or two?"

"Happy, no," Spot gave her a faint smile. "But I will."

"You're a wonder, Spots. What would I do without you?"

0o0o0o0o0o0

"But _sir-_!"

…Superintendent Boxer could feel a headache coming on.

"No buts, constable. I can't authorise this," he shook his heavy head, and pushed the data wafer carefully back across the table to his junior officer. "If it were anyone else you were investigating, I don't think I would hesitate to give you my blessing. But if this has any truth to it," he pointed at the sheet. "This is not just 'anyone', not just an inept, junior Decepticon guard left behind by Megatron. This mysterious Seeker you want to track down? Might be one of Megatron's elite guard. And while I agree with you that finding out what he is up to is of paramount importance," he raised his voice to be heard over Pulsar's protests. "I can not allow junior officers to get tangled up in it!"

"But you gave your permission for us to get involved in Project Azure, at last. How is this worse? We're not going anywhere near the Blue gangs, we just want to find out what the Decepticon involvement in this whole big mess is-"

The superintendent studied his fingers, laced in front of him at his desk. "It is bad enough that we were forced into involving your ranks in Azure at all," he rumbled, grimly, releasing a finger to underline his words. "No offence intended to your capabilities, but it isn't fair that we should be forced to drag inexperienced officers like yourself into it. And you will most certainly not be poking around _on your own_ in territory so dangerous as this! If and when we find information enough to confirm Megatron's involvement, the appropriate ranks will take charge of the situation."

"Sir, if I might interject-" Nightsun stepped forwards. "Even Chief Inspector Hardline gave his permission. He considered it to be well-thought-out, with appropriate safety precautions… This is just a little undercover information-gathering. Arrests are _way_ down the line."

Boxer gave them both a long, hard stare. "I have given the pair of you my final answer. I can not allow you to risk your own personal safety – and the safety of the civilians around you! – by chasing after mysterious Decepticons. What, for instance, do you anticipate you will do if you find him? I'd consider it fairly naïve to believe he'll allow himself to be _watched _and _arrested_ peacefully!"

"But _sir_-" Pulsar looked particularly irritable at being denied.

"That is my final word, constable! If I find out you have gone behind my back, you will be _back _on street patrol for the _next_ vorn. Is that understood?"

"Yes sir," Pulsar glared, but backed down.

"Good. Consider yourself dismissed." He watched her flounce angrily past Nightsun, and raised a finger before the helicopter could follow. "Sergeant?"

Nightsun paused in the doorway. "Sir?"

"I expect you to keep a close eye on her, for now. Keep her on a leash, if you have to," Boxer growled. "I know the lower ranks are restless, with all the action they are not involved with, but to allow them to get tangled up with the likes of Megatron's elite would be both unfair and unkind. Especially since it would not be such a simple case as arresting _one_ Decepticon, if you get my meaning."

"Of course, sir." Nightsun inclined his head. His time spent on Earth – no matter how short it had been – had been enough to allow him to instantly recognise the blue aircraft. He'd not breathed a word of it to Pulsar, of course, because telling _one_ junior would have meant telling them _all_, via the gossip chain, and the idea they had the likes of none other than Thundercracker skulking in the neighbourhood would have inspired every last lowly constable to make it their personal crusade to make the arrest. The helicopter doubted the Seeker would be particularly reticent about killing, if the need arose and his personal freedom was in danger, and where _one_ of the trine went, the other two usually followed fairly closely.

Pulsar was waiting for him in the hallway, glowering darkly.

"Maybe this _is_ for the best, eh, Pulse?" he offered, trying to lighten her mood. "Chasing Decepticons means we're not involved in Project Azure any more, right?"

"_What_?!" She resisted the urge to bleep her sirens in outrage. "You're not taking _his_ side?! You _know_ we can do this. Even _Hardline _knows we can do this! You _know_ we've got the street-savvy to remain safe and unseen. I've patrolled that neighbourhood for _vorns_, I know every last door, every last old crate, I could be in and out without even the _Empties_ noticing me-!"

"Look, Pulsar, I'm speaking to you as a friend, not your superior," Nightsun sighed, and rattled his rotors, irritably. "This is more dangerous than you realise. Just… let it drop, for now, okay?"

She gave him a probing look, and her eyes brightened. "You know who it is-… you know who the Seeker was!" she realised, wickedly delighted. "You recognised him! That must mean he _is_ high up, right? Come on, Nightsun. I won't tell anyone. Was it Shortspar? Or maybe-… maybe Turbulence," her brows creased in concentration, cross-referencing colour schemes against known Decepticons. "Windshear?"

"Pulsar, cut it out. You're not going to go look for him. Don't make me report you to the Super, he won't hesitate to suspend you for a few dozen orns."

She ignored him. "_Thundercracker_," she breathed, as if in triumph. "Was that him? Is that who it was?"

"Look-… no!" The lie slipped out without Nightsun even realising it until he'd said it, he'd been so confident she'd not succeed in guessing. "You're not going to guess who it was, now cut it out! I'm not going to spend all the rest of the orn listening to you listing the names of possible Decepticons! Lay off the silly ideas for a few orns."

But she was grinning, and he had the nasty thought that she was going to go and do something idiotic anyway.

"Pulsar, please. Promise me? The last thing I want to do is find you in pieces somewhere because you pissed off Decepticon High Command. If you _have_ to go snooping for hiding Decepticons, at least let Project Azure come to completion. We might have some mechs to spare for backup." He caught her hand. "Please. Don't go in alone."

She looked down at the dark blue hand that had tightened on her own, and finally nodded, reluctantly.

0o0o0o0o0o0

_…nnhhh…? _

_Cerebral functionality-resumed. Chronometer fault:unable to connect._

_…What happened?_

_Why does my head hurt?_

_Index error. Memory-continuity:disruption _

_…Index error? What does _that_ mean? _

_Fault:indeterminate. Mechanical error_

_Instabilities:systemwide. Recommend-full external diagnostic_

_Optics:online. Functionality:seven-three-percent. Replacement advised. Recalibrating. _

_What-… what's that rattling? Is that me? No-… wait. Not me. External. _

The persistent clickering in the background turned into irritating noise of two pairs of hands moving across hard surfaces, and then there was the pipe of a nervous male voice, apparently noticing his optics flicker. "Sepp? He's waking up again. Want me to fetch the knockout drops?"

"Mm, no. That's okay," a distracted, deep voice in the middle distance responded, and there was the low tramp of heavy bootsteps. "Let him come round, for now."

"Eh? You sure he's okay to be awake-?" Sounded like the same male voice, but coming from a different angle, now. Then both at once, each taking half the sentence. "He didn't help matters – last time he came round."

Was that twins? He squinted at the colourful blurs, feeling the lenses straining to recalibrate, but they remained blurs, for now.

"Yes. I think he's stable enough, for now. So long as he doesn't go moving about too much." That voice was deeper, but – oddly – sounded female. Sounded like there were a couple of veerry confused mechanoids, here. "He's not fitted in cycles, and the major damage to his conduits have been patched. He should be fine. If it comes to the worst, we can just let him doze off again."

"Well, I'm not taking the mantle off him, yet," came a surly grumble from the leftmost male voice. What was a mantle? "Just to be safe."

_Why does my head hurt? _There was a long, slow ache at the base of his skull, at the nape of his neck. He went to lift a hand to rub at it, but his limbs wouldn't respond. Worry flickered up through him. _What's going on? Am I a captive? Why can't I move? _He tested each actuator relay in turn, and although they all pinged back to him, confirming all were in place and connected, none would actually respond to commands.

_Stasis_, something informed him, as the world slowly came into focus. But a weird, partial stasis. Stasis from the neck down. He couldn't even struggle, and right now he felt the urge to, just to convince himself he wasn't dead.

His optics finally calibrated enough to focus, allowing him to study a world he didn't quite recognise. Grey walls. Small room. Resting on some kind of… inclined surface, staring mostly at the ceiling. Lighting came from a series of subtle white panels flush with the walls.

"Hello." A strange, half-faced male finally came into his field of view – the back of the helm lacquered in the most unbelievably obnoxious shade of orange he was already halfway convinced it couldn't possibly belong to a friendly mech. "How are you feeling?"

Ah. A quick glance to the side revealed the other half of the head. So it _was_ one individual after all, it was just… in two places at once. Peeled in half like a-… like a… halfable… thing. _You can do a better analogy than that, brain_. Brain couldn't find an appropriate metaphor in the superficial memory, though, and for now he had more important questions to ask. "Who-… who are-… you?"

_Vocaliser:reboot required. _

"Spotweld," the other half of the strange mech replied. "This is my home. We're trying to help you."

_Help? This didn't __feel__ very helpful. _"…so why can't-… why can't I-… move?"

"There's a temporary stasis mantle at your shoulders," the female voice supplied, and _Primus_, no wonder she sounded so masculine, she was a _giant_. "Since we couldn't get you to lay still any other way."

"…why would-… I want to lay-… lay still?" Irritably, he took his vocaliser back offline, and waited while it recalibrated.

"You kept on opening up all the damage we were trying to fix, that's why. You weren't exactly helping yourself."

He angled his gaze downwards for the first time, while he waited for his stuttery vocaliser to reboot. Taking its own sweet time about it, too, wasn't… it… _Primus. Is that __me__? What a mess. One giant lump of scrap metal and-… is that __glue__? Holy. Slagging. Pit. Why the frag don't I remember any of this?_

"Who are you, anyway? Why am I here?" He glanced around himself, uncomfortably. "Am I a prisoner? Is this a-… a punishment, of some sort?"

"A prisoner? No. You're only here while we repair you. I took you in when you walked into me."

"Annnd… you are…?"

"Forceps. Consultant Surgeon at the district hospital. This," she gestured. "Is my friend Spotweld. At least… Spot, and Weld, right now."

"We've met," the Seeker forced a smile, although he didn't feel particularly happy. "Which side is which?"

The right half – Spot? – chuckled, humourlessly. "Do you remember anything about what happened to you?" he asked, head quirked over to one side while his other half continued measuring out a length of replacement piping.

The dark face creased very slightly in a little frown. "No," he replied, thoughtfully. He elected not to tell them he barely remembered what he was doing here. _Am I a pris-… no, repairs. Helping me. _

"Well, what can we call you?"

The Seeker opened his mouth to answer, but nothing would come. _Who am I?_ He dug a little deeper, and found that the odd superficial layer of memories were _all_ his memories. _Primus, who __am__ I?_

"Just your name is fine," the half-face smiled in a way that was clearly intended to be reassuring, but just looked eminently creepier. "We don't need a full run-down of your history."

"My name-…? That is, I-…" That strange green machine was looking at him again. He wasn't _entirely_ sure what gender it was, yet – having a name like 'Forceps' didn't help – just that it was shorter than its friend, but significantly more massive. It was a squarely built groundpounder, with a cold, mistrustful look in its optics, and a square head with a battle-mask covering its mouth, if there even was one under all that armour. It was… off-putting, being trapped in that yellow stare. "Am I a prisoner here, Forceps?" he asked, grimly. He didn't like being confined down here, although he wasn't quite sure _why_. _Wings itchy._

The green monster swapped a funny look with the obnoxiously orange creature working alongside it. Her? Whatever. "No. You're only here while we repair you."

"Why do I need repairs? What did you do to me?" he glanced down at his broken body, and a flicker of nervousness dimmed his optics. _What a fragged-up mess._ "Are you really a surgeon, or am I here for you to experiment on?"

"I'm really a surgeon," the green one nodded. "I found you roaming the streets like this. Primus only knows how you kept going."

"So who are you, and why am I here?" he asked, uncomfortably. Pathways had heated up in his chest and he felt tight and sore, unable to get coolant to route through the overheating circuits. _No wonder they're forcing me to keep still._

...Forceps and Spotweld exchanged odd looks.

"Um, we already told you our names," Spot offered. "Do you not remember?"

"I think I would remember you telling me something like that," the Seeker replied, disparagingly.

"Oh. Um. That is-"

"I'm Forceps, I'm a surgeon, I'm repairing you," Forceps stepped forward to fill the pause. "Spotweld is my landlord. He's a medical technician, and helping out."

"Repairs? Is that why I can't move? Why can't I move?" Another of those contorting facial expressions that implied he wanted to shift from an uncomfortable position and didn't quite understand why his body wouldn't respond.

"We've had to use a stasis mantle on you. Just to stop you opening all our temporary repairs back up."

"So this isn't some sort of punishment…?" He gave her a wary look. "No, I'm sure _epoxy resin _isn't a recognised repair method. This has to be some sort of sick ritual-"

"The glue was already there when I found you. It stopped you bleeding to death, actually."

"I owe my life to being glued into an immobile lump of spare parts? Fantastic," he let his head drop back to the berth with a little _thud_. "How long will it take you to peel it all off so I can move again?"

"You're not immobile because of the emergency repairs," Forceps explained, softly. "You're immobile so we stand a chance at fixing up the repairs. Once we sort out your memory, we can take the mantle down again. Perhaps I ought to let you get back into recharge, for a while…"

"Is that a threat?" The Seeker's eyes narrowed, subtly, and the two medics knew what was coming before he asked it. "Look-… who are you, and what am I doing here? Why won't you answer my questions?"

"No, you didn't mishear," Forceps answered Spotweld's unspoken question. "Remember I suspected it the first time? Now I'm sure of it. There's damage to his memory cortex."

"Explain?" Spot encouraged.

"He can make short-term memories just fine. He's called us both by name once or twice, remember? But he can't seem to commit them to longer-term storage. Everything gets overwritten by newer memories, while he remains awake."

"What could be causing it, do you suppose?"

"Physical damage would be my first bet. Some sort of break in connection. If it's not that…" She spread her hands and rubbed the back of her square head. "I'd have to investigate. We can install some temporary plates, for now. Plenty of room in his chest cavity for them."

"So we don't have to answer the same question six times over?"

"That's the general idea. Until we get his long-term memory connected back up."

"There is nothing at all wrong with my memory," the Seeker sneered at them. "And who are you lot, anyway?"

0o0o0o0o0o0

"Hey, TC? Look," Skywarp was waving a news-wafer – a thin slip of programmable polycarbonate, whose pages you flicked through by flexing the plastic. The dark Seeker didn't look happy. "Look! How dare they splash this all over the tabloids? How fragging _dare_ they? I'd like to see how they can write slag like this with _all their fingers smashed_!"

"You're not wasting our few remaining credits with buying newspapers, are you?" Thundercracker scolded, watching as his dark wingmate stalked over, stiff-legged, wings trembling with ill-controlled tension.

"Nah, I found it." Skywarp didn't bother drawing the little speech-marks around 'found' but Thundercracker sensed he actually meant 'mugged someone for it'. "Just… Look at the article." His optics flared an angry crimson. "Look!"

Thundercracker found he had little choice in reading the article as Skywarp thrust it under his nose regardless.

_**Decepticons cleared of involvement in Blue threat!**_ read the headline. Thundercracker frowned. That "Blue" again. It was obviously a bigger issue than he or Skywarp had at first thought.

_The manufacturers of the illegal narcotic Blue today denounced any involvement of the Decepticon faction in their plans by releasing footage of the murder of a high-ranking Decepticon officer by three Blue loyalists. It is claimed this was a message of strength and superiority to all doubters, although our in-house analysts have given the indication that this was in fact simple opportunism in action. _

_"We are the new way," read the statement that accompanied the video. "We are the fire that will burn away the stale taint of the crumbling Decepticon so-called supremacy. We will sterilise this world, and birth it one more into a golden age!"_

_"Regardless of intent, this is a powerful message", Councillor Livewire stated, when interviewed. "Our Decepticon, ah… brethren… would do well to pay it heed and reconsider their paths in life. This is a threat we must all work together to counter."_

_The three attackers are rumoured to be the same as the individuals responsible for attacking Councillor Riptide nineteen orns ago, but positive identification has – as yet – proved impossible. Police are following leads, but have yet to make any arrests. They request that anyone with information comes forward._

_- Ends._

The little video feed in the corner of the sheet was unexpectedly graphic – Thundercracker was more than a little surprised they showed the footage in its entirety, without censoring, all the way to the final blow to the back of his wingmate's dark head. Of course, it was an Autobot-run tabloid, and in spite of claims of impartiality, the obvious "death" of such a high-ranking and hated figure would sell like papers like nobody's business. He could feel his face contorting into an involuntary snarl of anger.

The small size and the fact he knew Screamer had survived the encounter didn't make it any more appealing to look at, but he found himself unable to tear his gaze away from it. _Was this what humans called 'trainwreck syndrome'?_ The footage stopped with an over-the-shoulder glance at the skewed body laying in the alleyway, surrounded by a bright puddle of internal fluids, as the assailants fled – in spite of knowing that Starscream had got up and managed to stagger almost all the way home, he looked very dead in this footage.

"You know what this means, don't you?" Skywarp wore the same grim, black expression.

Thundercracker glanced up, and nodded, solemnly. "This means _war_."

0o0o0o0o0o0

"How much _longer_, Forceps? Does it _always_ take you this long to do anything?"

"It's called doing a good job, Seeker. Not that I imagine you'd know much about that."

"Psh." He wasn't quite sure why he rankled so much at being called by his model, but he kept his irritation turned inwards. "I'm sure I could do a good job if I needed to."

A couple of hastily installed memory plates in the blank space in his cockpit had finally put an end to the circular conversation they'd been enjoying/enduring earlier, but naturally the ability to commit things to memory again didn't help his _missing_ memories resurface. Everything was just… nothing. It was as if he'd onlined for the very first time in their spare room. He knew the memories were _there_, because his registry said so! Not just vorns of memories, but _thousands_ of vorns. He just… he couldn't _get_ at them. All those important little facets of self, all inaccessible. Although equally, he wasn't sure he wanted to access all that was contained in his main cortex, for now. If he _was _some sort of war criminal, he didn't want to be handed over to the authorities before his repairs were done!

_Whoever it was did this to me – whoever I am – I shall make them pay. They will pay me back __in triplicate__. _The anger felt oddly comfortable. Hot and sweet and familiar. It was comforting in a raw, acerbic sort of way.

"We still don't know your name, Decepticon," Forceps pointed out, cleaning out more epoxy from a shoulder junction. "Or why you're here."

"Are you going to stop treating me if I tell you?" He sneaked a sideways look at her from his half-sitting position. Now he had the faculties to understand the need to sit still, they'd taken off the stasis mantle, and he only occasionally jigged around to annoy them.

"Why would I do that?"

He hesitated. "I don't know. I'm a Decepticon. Isn't that good enough?"

"Plenty of Decepticons out there who've done less terrible things than some of the Autobots, in the guise of wholesome goodness. I admit it's unlikely, but you _could _be one of these lesser evils," the surgeon shrugged, casually. "Besides, if I was going to stop treating you because of your faction, don't you think I'd have already stopped by now? It's always been pretty obvious you're no Autobot. So. Name?"

"No. Better I remain an enigma for you," he smirked, lopsidedly. "Just in case."

"Because you're scared to tell us who you are, in case we turn you in, or just can't access that memory?"

Perhaps scared had been a bad description to use, because there was a flicker of something nasty in his expression and his chin came up. "Hardly _frightened_, and of _course _I can access the memory," he snapped, slumping back against the berth and blocking her way, arms folded tight across his chest, but he looked… uneasy. "I _know_ who I _am_."

"All we need for now is a name for you?" Spotweld offered. "You could make something up, if you don't want us to know who you really are?"

The Seeker remained silent, for a moment, still pouting but his brow furrowing in thought.

"How about Scarlet?" Spotweld offered. "Better than nothing, and it sort of matches your paintwork?"

"Huh," 'Scarlet' wrinkled his lip, but didn't outright reject the idea.

"Come on, you royal pain-in-the-afterburners. Sit forwards," Forceps caught a hand under a shoulder vent and half-pushed, half-coaxed him to sit. "I want to get a look at why your primary cortex isn't working properly."

"Oh, so you're a _brain surgeon _too, now?" he sneered, but did as told, hissing as a stylus prodded gently into a tiny release trigger. "Be careful with that."

"I'm always careful." She watched as armoured segments unfolded like a black waterlily, irising open to reveal the muted chromework within, glittering coolant vapour rolling over the lowest margin. _Have to make sure I replace all that which just evaporated out. _

…Then she stared down at the spiderweb tangle of silver filaments, and felt her spark sink. "Oh."

"Well?"

"Uhm-… well, it's…" Forceps scratched the back of her head. "It's more complicated than I thought."

"Want to define exactly what you mean by _that_, surgeon?"

"I've never seen a Seeker brain before. And yours is… well, a lot more complex than I had imagined it would be."

"Meaning you have no idea how you're going to fix it?" he huffed and folded his arms across his cockpit. "Great. So I'm going to be stuck without a brain for another half-vorn, at the minimum?"

Forceps shook her head, irritably, and nudged the appropriate switches to iris the dark armour closed again. "At the moment, no, I _don't _know how I'm going to fix you," she confirmed. "But that doesn't mean I'll _never _know. I just need to find a point of reference." She flicked the back of his helm with a finger, bad-temperedly, once she was sure the plating was firmly sealed. "You're not exactly helping."

"What do you expect _me_ to be able to do?" Scarlet rubbed his head, and gave her a poisonous glare. "Even on the odd chance I _had_ taken a look inside _my own cranial casing_ recently, I wouldn't be _remembering_ much of it!"

The urge to throttle him took some quashing. "I'm going to get some fresh air," she snapped, brushing off Spotweld's quiet concerns, and headed out towards their quiet porch overlooking the street.

Refuelling in peace was a luxury she'd taken for granted until now. She stepped out into the cooler air, energon in hand, tilted her face skywards, and sighed as a breeze soothed the heat out of uncomfortable processors. This was hard work. She'd had problematic patients before – who she usually, thankfully, only saw briefly _pre-_surgery and avoided at all costs _post-_surgery, so her longest contact was when they were already sedated and offline and on her table – but never one who seemed to take such a perverse thrill in winding the pair of them up. Not that _that_ took much effort –sure, _Spotweld _was an easygoing sort of mech, who put up with most of the vinegary insults with a weary smile, but _she_ could have never been accused of being a sweet-tempered, patient little femme. _Perhaps __that's__ why they kicked him to the point of self-destruct, _she considered, uncharitably. _Couldn't get him to shut the frag up._

She wished she could work out exactly _why_ he had no functional memory. 'Amnesia' was something that was caused by either physical damage or an electromagnetic pulse, and the latter was ruled out by the high-quality shielding inside his cerebral armour – unless he'd been walking around with his cortical housing open to the elements, and he seemed to have too strong a sense of self-preservation for that…! So it had to have the same origin as all the other damage, and she'd found and patched a tiny hole at the nape of his neck, but that little glimpse _inside_ his cortical processor had left her stumped. Seeker anatomy was built around the principle of everything being as lightweight as possible, and while there was clearly _damage_ to some of the tiny connectors, she had no idea which nano-wire connected to which micro-connector. Connecting them the wrong way round would probably do more damage than just leaving them until she could find a Seeker willing to sit and let her take a peek at their _undamaged_ brain – and Seekers weren't too common a breed, any more. Most of the flighty thrill-seeking creatures worked for Megatron. She might be waiting a while. Primus help them all.

There was a little _peep_ from a siren, some distance up the street, and she glanced in the direction the sound had come from to find a small blue and white grav-cycle approaching. She smiled in recognition – only one individual she knew used her siren as a greeting, and that was Pulsar, a little Autobot police officer, who Spotweld had met and befriended in the Emergency Department after a small-scale riot some vorns ago. The femme was a skinny little scrap of nothing – barely looked like a competent police officer at times – but she was dedicated, and kept them appraised of all the important little happenings in their neighbourhood.

"Hello, Pulse," Forceps greeted, watching the gravity cycle unfold into an angular little female – three-quarters her height, but less than a quarter her mass. "News?"

"Nothing worth writing home about," Pulsar shook her head, tiredly, plonking her weight down on the low chair on the porch. "The usual old unsubstantiated rumours. Superintendent Boxer is jumping at shadows again. Same old same old, really." She shifted as her friend settled her heavy mass next to her and the seat tilted precariously. "More importantly, I noticed I'd not seen you or Spots about lately. Came to check you were all right," she smiled. "You look half-slagged, Sepp. Been skipping out on recharge again?"

Forceps forced a smile. "Been busy," she confirmed, grimly, but didn't elaborate. Telling this eager little Autobot that she had a Decepticon in her spare room seemed… imprudent. "I hear _you've_ been getting a bit of excitement, yourself," she observed, offering her friend a cup and some of the remaining violet fluid.

Pulsar's angular features compressed into a glare, but she accepted the energon. "Puh. _Excitement._ Right."

"I take it from the way your mouth has turned into a little moue of displeasure that it was a less-than-successful venture?"

"Oh, no, no, very _successful_, if my Super is to be believed. Just…" She grimaced. "I swear, if I have to fill in one more piece of slagging paperwork off the back of it, I am going to kick off _so hard_ that the Decepticons are going to be the _least_ of my Superintendent's issues."

"Decepticons?" Forceps found her attention perking, slightly. "I thought you were on Project Azure."

"Well, yeah, we are, kinda. But-… see, Nightsun and I think there's some sort of Decepticon involvement, but my Super either _can't_ or _won't_ see the connection," she grumbled into her energon. "The Sarge and I were going to go do our own little investigation, since it's not obviously connected, and we noticed there was a Seeker hanging around the place when we arrested the landlord, but even though we got the Chief's blessing, Boxer squelched the idea. Paranoid, that's what _he_ is."

"A Seeker?" Forceps brows lifted, slightly. At least it proved there was more than one in the neighbourhood, then. Maybe if she could speak to it-

"Don't tell me _you're_ joining that bubbleheaded fan-club of theirs," Pulsar grumbled, wrinkling her lip. In spite of their allegiances, Seekers tended to have a bit of a female following – understandable, because they were all invariably sleek, elegant, good-looking machines, and _damn_ could some of them fly beautifully – but Pulsar considered herself far too principled to stoop to such flighty things.

Forceps actually laughed – mm, that felt good. She'd not had much cause to laugh, these past few orns. "Not on your life. I prefer a mech with a bit of a brain in his head. Maybe it's why I'm still putting up with Spotweld."

"So why the interest?"

"I have a patient," Forceps pulled a face. "A Seeker patient. Who has a pretty severe case of amnesia. I've worked out _why_, just not how to fix it."

"Ah, and you want a spare to sit on and use for reference, correct?" Pulsar grinned. "Tell you what. If we find it, we'll lend it to you for a while, once we've wrung all the details about Blue from it."

"_If_ you find it?"

"Ah, you watch me. This place is just _crawling_ in Decepticons, you mark my words. I'll bet you I've tripped over one, by this time tomorrow."


	7. Chapter 7

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Seven**

**Disclaimer:** As ever. Author neither claims nor (intentionally) implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any other character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. Blabla, etc etc, und so weiter.

**A/N:** Apologies for the delay, my PC and I have been having "hardware issues" (a.k.a. "screen go flicker-flicker-dead", then the modem and the internet had one of their little spats and wouldn't talk to each other) which lost me a bit of my momentum. But things are back up, so all is good.

Thank you, _thank you _to my reviewers. :) :bows: I'm glad people are enjoying it. If anyone spots anything too horrible, just poke me. My ego can take it. ;)

Now, onward.

* * *

The editor of the _Sphere_ was working late. Plans for greatness didn't write themselves.

Refractor had started out in the business as a member of the paparazzi, hounding dignitaries and celebrities and snagging some frankly _award-worthy_ long-distance shots (or at least, they would have been, if they weren't of individuals in such wonderfully scandalous situations), but the advent of war had pushed him into slightly more noble employment. He'd taken editorial control of the _Sphere_ when it had been a struggling tabloid, now it could boast half the readership in the district. Not that _that_ was much of an accomplishment – in Refractor's not-so-humble-opinion, not _many_ of the machines around here were actually _literate_. He had to get the paper up out of the gutter and _make_ something out of it, and then maybe he'd get the awards he wanted.

And as for Blue… now _that _could be his big break. There'd been a lot of interest in the story they'd run about the drug – public outrage at how things like that had been allowed to run unchecked to such terrifying levels in their community, and an odd kind of righteous indignation at the frankly _surreal_ death of the Decepticon. It was almost as if the more immediate threat of Blue had allowed the public to forget how terrible their Decepticon oppressors had been, and even let a sort of odd sympathy for their enemies seep into the collective consciousness. He could barely believe it himself – if there'd been anyone _more _suited to a good flogging than that whiney, overblown red Seeker, he certainly couldn't think of them – but he couldn't argue with the simmering anger that his readership was giving off.

There'd been plenty of thanks from the _police_, too, which left him feeling completely puffed up with pride. They'd apparently had a flush of new information pour in since the article – damn it all, he should have gone with his instincts and given it pride of place on the cover – from concerned relatives of the addicts, from neighbourhood busybodies, from individuals in just the right place at the right time. No arrests, yet, and nothing conclusive, but the _Sphere_'s police attaché had promised to keep the newspaper appraised of developments, in appreciation of their help.

He could feel the critical acclaim already within his grasp. Critical acclaim and awards and power beyond his dreams…! He'd always had aspirations of taking the tabloid to greater things and better places – if he had his way, the _Sphere _would be a broadsheet to rival the likes of the _Sovereign _or the _Custodian_. And this might be the chance he'd been waiting for. If only he could personally blow the whole "Blue conspiracy" wide open…

Before he could do that, he had a lot of things to straighten out. Wasn't wise to try to climb too high with too much scandal clinging to him. Lots of things he needed to wash his hands of involvement in. There were people to bribe, people to threaten, people to pay off-

There was an odd kind of a '_slup_' noise from out in his secretary's office, which he paid little attention to until the stuttering voices started an astro-second later. Voices that didn't just belong to his secretary. Voices that didn't in fact belong to _any _of his staff. Sharp, sneery, angry, threatening voices. He felt all his pumps freeze up.

There was another _slup_ and the voices stopped. At least, the _voices_ stopped, but the _footsteps _didn't. He wasn't sure if it was just his imagination, but they sounded like solid, unwavering steps from a mech considerably heavier than his scrawny secretary, across the floor to his doorway. Pumps that had gone still in his chest suddenly resumed so hard it felt like they were trying to shatter their way out through his thoracic armour, flushing cool energon through all his limbs – prepping for a quick getaway. But where was he going to _go_? The only real way out was the door the mobster – or whoever – was hidden behind. The windows were very high up, the air-conditioning ducts were small – if he'd not seen fit to augment his root mode to look a little more impressive, he could have fitted down them. All he could hope was that he could make a dash for freedom and throw the intruder off-balance for long enough to make good his escape-

The door opened, chasing a gust of cool air in from the open windows of his secretary's office. Refractor glanced up, nervously, _hoping_ it _was _just going to be his secretary, after all, to explain what had-

It was _not_ his secretary who was framed in the doorway. To start with, his secretary was a sort of unappealing yellowish-khaki, not blue. Neither did he have those sleek, elegant wings. And he most certainly didn't _smile_ in that horribly feral way.

"Good evening, editor," the strange flier greeted, evenly, his voice like honey on gravel. He pushed the door closed behind himself, and the low _click_ as it shut felt like a gunshot. "I wonder if I might have a word?"

Refractor tried not to shrink down too far in his chair, knowing the flier was not here for any friendly purpose. "Well, I'm always happy to discuss matters that my readership find important," he said, unable to keep _all_ the frightened squeak out of his voice.

The blue flier chuckled, grimly, and examined the lock for the door. "I'm sure you are. Particularly if you can use that to advance your own standing, correct?"

Refractor laced his fingers in front of him to keep them from shaking so obviously, and watched as the flier advanced, racking his processors for a name. He felt he ought to know him – not many fliers this big and this powerful left in the district aerospace. Maybe he was from another district? A mobster who didn't like the way the _Sphere_ had been approached by Blue – a lowly newspaper, not a criminal cartel able to maximise profits from the new danger. Or perhaps it was unrelated… Deposed aristocracy? One of the disgruntled former ruling classes who'd lost his status, and had perhaps suffered the ignominy of a semi-slanderous story in the _Sphere_?

"I-I'm quite sure I don't understand-… What-what do you want?" he stammered, feeling himself failing to maintain his aura of unflappable unreachability. The cannons mounted on the flier's upper arms weren't yet active, but he couldn't tear his gaze away from them.

"My friends and I," the blue flier said, thoughtfully, setting his aft delicately onto the editor's desk and ignoring the way the smaller mech was staring openmouthed at his weaponry, "have a little issue with the story you ran on page four, yesterday."

"The-the Blue story? We were only-… we only-…" _Decepticon,_ he realised, the name clanging in his mind like the tolling of a funerary bell._ Ohh did I really think they'd not rise to it?_ Refractor cycled cool air through his systems and worked hard on calming his hammering pumps. "It is our duty to the public to warn them what exists in the shadows in their neighbourhoods. We published the footage because we felt it was the responsible thing to do. To warn our readership!"

"_Warn _them?" An amused sneer had tightened the corners of the ruby optics. "Are you certain you're an editor, not a politician? Because that sounds like you're trying to spin yourself out of trouble."

_So I __am__ in trouble. _"Look, please-… What do you want? Money? I can give you money, just name your price! Energon? Revenge against someone? Just tell me what you want, I'll do whatever-"

"Ohh, nothing like that. For now, I'm just after a little information." The little smile that flickered across the pale lips wasn't a reassuring one. "Although the money may be useful, later on." Almost casually, as if he hadn't realised what he was doing, the jet propped a blue foot turbine on the opposing arm of the chair, trapping Refractor in his seat. "We're quite high up, here, aren't we?" he observed, offhandly, and gazed out at the distant windows. "Excellent view of proceedings."

Refractor followed the crimson gaze, wondering what he was looking at-

There was a shriek and a flash of olive-yellow – the same yellow as his secretary's exterior plating – outside his window, and an exaggerated "oops!" from above, and a flash of black and purple and a roar of engines followed it.

"Primus-!" Refractor yelped, jolting hard in his chair. He braced his hands to dive over to the window to look, but the blue thruster propped on the arm of the chair _rumbled_ warningly.

"Oh dear me, was that your secretary?" The little smile had broadened, lip curling into a sneer. "Unfortunate little accident he's just had there. What say you we discuss the best way for you to avoid a similar one?"

Refractor had already turned most of the way into a whimpering, quivering mass of loosely-connected components – his concern not really for his loyal secretary but rather for the potential for him to join him, spread out across the ground far below…

"I have to say, your secretary should be glad my friend has a better acceleration than _falling_ does," the Decepticon went on, still watching out of the window as the sound of engines gradually built from below. "I was never able to cut it quite so _fine_. I'd probably miss, if you were unfortunate enough to have the same sort of accident." A pause, and a shrug. "Which would be a shame, because we still have our uses for you. If you know what I mean?"

"I'll do anything, just please don't hurt me-!" Refractor shrank deeper into his chair, listening as the voices became audible over the noise of engines; the purple and black was back, outside his window, although this time it was less of an indistinct flash of colour – there was a wing, a shoulder vent, a hand and arm-… another flier, obviously, same model as the Decepticon in his office, and just as mentally unstable. The owner of the purple hand wasn't completely visible, from this angle, but his secretary certainly was – a gibbering wreck of a mech, promising to spill absolutely everything he knew, promising money, very nearly promising his _first-sparked child_ to the flying demon that carried him by the ankle, back to the roof. "I'll do anything-!"

The blue Seeker mostly ignored the sight. "I'm sure you will!," he smiled. "Now where were we? Oh yes. Your… _ill-considered_ decision to publish that footage."

"Please, I told you, we only published it because we felt the public deserved to know." _Now just keep telling yourself that. With luck, if __you__ start to believe it, so will he. _"This Blue problem is bigger than anyone has been allowed to realise-! You have to understand-"

"Now now, editor, I don't like being lied to. You published it to sell copies of your newspaper, plain and simple. And guess what?" The sneering grin finally fell off the pale face. "That was _my wingmate's_ death you splashed across your dirty little tabloid," the blue monster hissed, leaning down closer, arms propped on each side of the chair and fencing the editor in. His eyes smouldered a deep crimson, like the shimmering heat that glowed up from the smelting pools. "That was my wingmate's _murder _you used to sell copies of your scandalmongering journal. You used _our misfortune _to advance _your sordid reputation_, editor, and I can tell you _for free_ that such things don't go down well with people like us."

"Please!" the editor wailed, cowering. "I meant no insult by it, I swear I meant no insult. A courier brought it and the message insisted we show it!" He curled his arms in front of his face. "I never considered repercussions. Please, I promise, I didn't mean to cause any offence-"

"All right, stop snivelling." The back of a black hand swatted him around the faceplates – not hard enough to damage, just hard enough to shake him out of his whining stupor. "We need to do business, editor," the pale features cracked in a broad, friendly smile. "You give us what we want to know, and, um…" The blue demon leaned closer. "We might just let you live."

0o0o0o0o0o0

"Feel up to a little discussion, Autobot?"

The _Sphere's _secretary didn't feel up to _anything_, but elected not to say so. He stood on the wind-whipped top of the skyscraper, arms clutched in a self-protecting hug around himself, trembling so hard he looked like he was fitting.

Somewhere down below, his employer had stopped making those frightening pained noises, but it didn't reassure him. Not only did he not want to know _why_ the boss had stopped making horrible sounds, he himself was still stuck here on the top of a windswept skyscraper, pushed around by an unfriendly jet-stream, with a clearly clinically _insane_ Seeker trying to make small-talk with him. He didn't want to end up making the same hurt sounds that Refractor was making – although this Seeker seemed inclined to use alternative means of persuasion from the outset. The dark-painted jet had already booted him clean off the top of the building once already, catching him literally microns away from making a nice big dent in the ground below, and the only thing that stopped him outright purging his fuel tanks was the fact that he'd already done that when the Seeker teleported him to the roof. Groundlings like him didn't deserve to be put so high above the ground, certainly not without safety rails around them.

He was trying to appease the insane mech, but was struggling to work out exactly what he wanted. He was obviously after information, but information about _what_? He was only a secretary, he didn't really know _anything. _The Seeker had grilled him about the footage they'd printed in the previous orn's _Sphere_ – where'd they get it from, who doctored it, who were the thugs, what algorithm had they used to disguise their appearance – and the secretary had gladly spilled all the information he knew. Problem was, he didn't actually know much aside from about the courier who'd brought it – just your average unaffiliated contract courier, he'd handed over the parcel, got a signature on his databoard and gone again. The secretary hadn't even known what was on the card until Refractor had spilled from his office bubbling excitedly and making grandiose claims of having the biggest scoop this vorn. He'd promptly rushed to get it published, probably to ensure nobody beat him to it and cheated him out of his story.

"Glad I'm not in your Boss' position, right now," the dark Seeker mused, leaning out and gazing down over the edge of the building. The wind tugged at his wings and acted like it wanted to topple him clean off, but he ignored it. (For his part, the secretary felt nauseous, just watching.) "Pretty stupid of him to think he could publish something like that and get away with it."

"I don't think he _was_ thinking," the secretary quailed. "I don't think he even suspected you – that is, Megatron's elite – would find out."

"Huh. What an idiot." The compliment had softened the glower in the crimson optics, however, and the grin wasn't quite so bestial. "He publishes graphic footage of the brutal murder of an important Decepticon, and thinks we _won't find out_?"

"I don't think he thought any further about it than what he could get from it," the secretary mumbled. "He just wanted to be the first to report it."

"Well, if that's all that matters to him, he'll get his chance to write another first, soon. If he survives."

0o0o0o0o0o0

"Well?" Skywarp was sitting on the secretary's desk, picking infinitesimally small specks of dirt out of his finger-joints, when Thundercracker finally emerged from the editor's office. "Did he have it?"

"Nah." Thundercracker shook his head, grimly, attempting unsuccessfully to use a bit of torn old fabric to wipe essential fluids off his chassis. "Turned it over to the police already. Thought he'd wrung all the possible value out of it. All his copies were the same low-grade footage we'd already seen."

Skywarp glanced over the dirtied torso. "Think he was telling the truth?"

Thundercracker flexed dented fingers, and nodded, tossing the rag into a wastebasket behind the secretary's desk then turning his attention to the computer terminal. "Oh yeah," he nodded, and gave his wingmate a wry smile. "Eventually. What about the secretary? Get anything from him?"

"A smidgen. I left him on the roof, if you wanted to 'question' him, too, but he cracked pretty easy. Just booting him off the edge did it. I was hoping I'd have to get creative."

"You're not going to be able to catch them, one of these days." Thundercracker barely glanced up, rooting through the building's security footage.

"Tcha! I _never _miss." Skywarp lounged back a little so he could see to watch as images flickered up on the screen.

"Get any details on the courier?"

"A few. Grav-cycle, apparently. Green and brown. Neutral. Apparently unconnected – didn't even know what he was carrying." A purple finger dabbed at an individual on the screen. "What do you know, that looks like it might be the one. Think we could track him down? Ask who chartered him? Where he picked up the package from, who he spoke to?"

"Got to be worth more than what I got out of the editor." Thundercracker gave a dismissive little snort and put the computer back on stand-by. "Happy to slap his name across the story, but let his underlings do all the work. Tried to pay me off, too. As if _money_ _alone _would repay what he owes us!"

"I hope you took his money, anyway," Skywarp got up off the desk, which creaked as if in relief.

"Of course. Being the slightly more socially-responsible of the two of us doesn't make me any less _opportunistic_," Thundercracker made a face, and shrugged. "Took his money, and left our message. If we're lucky, it'll draw our thuggish friends out of the shadows a little bit, now they know we're onto them."

"If this nasty little tabloid chooses to print it. And if the Blue idiots don't try offlining the pair of us, too, just to complete the set. They say three's the charm, you know," Skywarp observed, linking an arm through his friend's, then wrinkled his nose in distaste, and added, before teleporting the pair away from the scene of the crime; "Before we do anything, you're gonna need another bath."

0o0o0o0o0o0

Scarlet didn't like being watched. That horribly-orange search-and-rescue drone had been sneakily watching him for the past four cycles, and it made him uncomfortable. At least the drone hadn't split in half again, so he was only obnoxious in colour, and didn't _look_ hideous as well. "What exactly _is_ your malfunction?"

The EMT didn't flinch from the snap – rather, he smiled genially, and looked back down at his work. "Just wondering what thoughts were running through your processors? Felt sorry I couldn't help you, too. Must be… tricky, not knowing exactly where you stand."

"Oh, what would _you_ know? You're… extrapolating facts from unknowns." But the glare wasn't quite as heated as it could have been. "Even your friend doesn't know what's wrong, and I don't feel like enlightening you." Huff, arms fold, sulk.

The smile turned more serious. "There's no shame in admitting the degree to which you've lost your memory," he pointed out, microwelding a new component in place. "We might be able to work out what's wrong, if we know exactly what you can't access?"

There was an uncomfortable silence, and for a while Spotweld was sure he'd inadvertently caused offence again and they'd have another few cycles of sulky, hurt-feeling'ed quiet.

The reply was unexpectedly soft. "I can't remember anything," came the comment, at last – faint, anxious. "Only hard-coded things. Autonomic things. Things I don't have to think about to do. Nothing… _important_. Nothing of _me_."

"Not even your name?" Spotweld was still happily convinced that the Seeker wasn't telling them his name because he didn't remember it. And if he didn't remember that, what else would he not recall? "Anything about your faction?"

"Faction?" Scarlet echoed, and quirked an optic ridge. "What, are we at _war_, or something?"

It had been meant as a derisory scoff, but the sad smile informed him at had been far too close to the mark. "Well, you _are_ a Decepticon. What did you _think_ that meant?"

"I didn't-… I mean, I'd never actually thought _that_ deeply about, just yet. Just figured it couldn't be a _good_ thing because you and Forceps keep on making such a big deal about it." the smile had slipped a little askew. "So we _are_ at war?"

"We have been for more thousands of vorns than I care to recollect."

"Pretty peaceful, for a warzone." Now _that_ was an challenging tone of voice if Spotweld ever heard one. _Back up your claim, Neutral._

"One of the perks of living somewhere no-one else wants, I guess?" he gave a sad, loose-limbed little shrug. "In this district, we've… never really had anything worth fighting over? The war just... passes around us. We still get the crime;" he gestured with one hand to the broken armour, "but it's all fairly small-scale? Comparatively, anyway."

"So if this is a war… am I the enemy?"

The EMT spread his hands. "If _you_ can't remember, what makes you think _I_ know?"

"You don't have to mince your words to protect my feelings."

Pause. "If the smudges on your wings are anything to go by," Spotweld explained, quietly, "then yes. You are. Although it does rather depend on who you talk to? Sepp and I are committed fence-sitters."

"Even fence-sitters sometimes have to make a choice, you know."

"War is convoluted enough to make all definitions of 'good side' and 'bad side' nothing but subjective assessments by one side or the other, right? I guess in spite of all their supposed faults, the Decepticons could be thought of as force for _change,_ not evil? Working to rejuvenate and re-energise this world, all burned out by the creeping decadence and hedonist lifestyles of the ruling classes."

"Well, when you put it _that_ way… Until I work out who I am, I'm going to join you on the fence."

0o0o0o0o0o0

Project Azure had suddenly got complicated. First, the Decepticons had been _rumoured_ to be involved. Next, Blue loyalists had _denied_ all and any Decepticon involvement. Now, the Decepticons were _definitely_ involved… on the _wrong_ side, if today's _Sphere_ was anything to go by.

_We will find them_, was the quote, from the un-named and _deeply insulted _Seeker who had broken into the _Sphere_'s office and bludgeoned the editor to within an inch of termination. _And we will 're-educate' them on why __we__ are the ruling faction. These pretenders to Decepticon supremacy will find their __facts__ are no longer so certain._

And so the hunt was _really_ on. Azure was no longer a half-sparked rather inappropriately sedate investigation by police officers who were convinced it was only a matter of time before they made the arrest. Now Azure was more a case of _oh __slag__ we've got to beat the __Decepticons__ to the punch, too, now._ How many operatives the enemy had on the case was a complete unknown – could just be the one angry Seeker, or it could be half the damn Decepticon army, righteously insulted after their second in command himself had been taken down a peg or two by Blue loyalists.

Pulsar felt a little taken aback by the gear-change. Suddenly, Boxer's order (and refusal to rescind it) wasn't that big a deal. She was here, right at the coalface, right in the thick of the investigation and _Pit_, Blue was going _down_!

Eventually. It felt like she'd spent all day running, and her fuel was just a thin, vapoury layer at the bottom of her tanks. At least she had her subspace pockets full of as many energon cubes as they would carry, for once, and she wanted to replace a little of what she'd scrounged off poor Forceps lately. The surgeon might have made her name by being big and gruff, but she was never the sort to turn down a machine in need, and the grav-cycle had capitalised on that quite shamefully, recently.

"Sepp?" she stuck her head around the front door. "You here?"

"She's gone out," came Spotweld's light tenor, in reply; she followed his words towards the spare room. "Run out of supplies, she said. Should be back soon. Want to wait for her?"

"Might as well," Pulsar agreed, glancing into the room where Spotweld was working, wondering what her friend was up to.

"_OW_," came the snarl, as if in greeting. "Watch where you stick that!"

Two sets of blue optics met. _Seeker_, her subconscious said. _But wait. Isn't that-_

The shock of recognition felt like getting someone's thruster in her power-regulator.

"_Whoa, _Primus alive-!" Pulsar gave a yelp, leaped backwards, and fell over an inconveniently-placed chair. Her pistol had leaped automatically to her hand. _Unarmed, damaged, make the arrest, make the arrest __now__._ She scooted herself frantically into the corner, still on her aft. "Get back, Spotweld-! I'll handle this!"

"What?" Spot had arched his head back on his long neck to give her a curious look, while Weld continued work. "Handle what?"

"Well, _she_ obviously knows me," the Seeker observed, amusedly. "Are all your friends this dysfunctional?"

"Just get back, Spots-… I need a clear shot! Need to make-" she forced her hands to stop trembling, stopped the laser sight jittering across the dark face. "I've got to make the arrest! I don't want any collateral damage-"

"Calm down, Pulse," Spot smiled and got back to work. "He's not going anywhere. He's no danger, right now."

"No danger-…? You _do_ know who your houseguest is, don't you?!" Pulsar demanded, from her spot on the floor.

Two pairs of expectant optics turned her way – this time, Spot was keeping his head down, concentrating on the area he was microwelding. "No. Who?"

"You genuinely don't know who that is?" she went on, staring. "Come on, this has got to be a wind-up. Is he threatening you? Where's Forceps, has he hurt her? Is he blackmailing you?"

The Seeker didn't even bother trying to hide his snerk. "It'd be nice to have sufficient faculties back to make that a reality," he observed, grimly.

"We couldn't even tell exactly what model he was when Forceps brought him in," Weld added. "Nor be entirely positive about gender."

"…" Pulsar opened her mouth but no words emerged.

"If you have any ideas, we're open to hear them," Spot added.

"Well-..." Pulsar frowned and pouted, unsure of herself, keeping the gun trained on the stranger but gently nudging the safety back over, tottering back to her feet. "I-… could be wrong. Maybe it's just a visual similarity." The closer she looked, the less the broken flier looked like who she thought it was. The Decepticon insignia – if that was what they were – were just smudged, indistinct purplish blobs. The optics that watched her – hostile, but not openly hateful, and probably only because she still had her gun trained on his midsection – were the traditional, sedate Autobot blue. "Someone using his reputation to advance their own."

"Whose reputation?" Ah, so Forceps was back. "What exactly is going on in here? What are you playing at, Pulsar?"

"You!" Pulsar grabbed her friend's arm and dragged her back outside. "Come on. I'm not talking with him sat there watching me."

Forceps allowed herself to be dragged as far as the street, where she promptly put on the brakes and almost jerked her friend off her feet altogether. "I know what this is about," she intuited, grimly, "and you have my assurance that hurting your feelings wasn't part of my plan."

"Well, congratulations, you failed spectacularly at that." The police officer folded her arms and glared, hotly. "You had him here all this time, and you never even _told_ me! And after everything _I_ told _you_!"

"Well, I know _you_ have been having issues with recall, lately, but _I_ distinctly remember you telling me your commanding officer forbade you from attempting any form of contact with ranking Decepticons. Why do you anticipate that I would go against this ruling and introduce you?"

"But this is different! This is important! This is-… it might be connected to the whole Blue problem!"

"All right," Forceps set her hands on her hips, and put on her best this-better-be-good face. "You have my undivided attention for the next breem. After that, you're going to let me get back to work."

"Remember what I told you? Those rumours about Blue, rumours about Decepticon involvement, and having those Primus-damn Seekers hanging about?"

Forceps nodded, mutely.

"I think that's who it is! I think _you_ found him. After they beat the slag out of him, he somehow didn't die, like the _Sphere_ said he did. He got up and you found him. Of all the unfair luck-…!"

"He? Who exactly _is_ he?"

"Don't you _read _the freaking news any more, Forceps?! What, are you hoping it'll all come through to you like _osmosis_?! If you just _stand there_ long enough, you'll absorb it from the ether?"

"You could stand to be a little less disparaging, sometimes," Forceps growled. "You may have noticed I have had more important things on my mind than the reading of news."

"Yeah, fixing up psychopaths so they can go back to wreaking evil on the planet…! _Starscream_!" Pulsar hissed, frustratedly. "_That_ is who you have tucked up so cosy in your spare room, using up all your energon – _and_ all your good will. Look, Sepp… You have to hand him over. It's the only realistic solution. You have to do the minimal work to get him stable, then you have to hand him over to us."

That might have been the wrong thing to say. Threatening her patients – no matter how well-deserving of the threatening they might be – always got a person on the burly surgeon's bad side. Forceps folded her arms across her chest, and squared her jaw. "I don't care for your tone of voice. Whoever he actually turns out to be, he is still my patient, and I won't be handing him over to the less-than-tender mercies of the police until he's well."

"Sepp-… argh. He's not some little lost waif who'll renounce all his evil ways after a little coddling. He is Megatron's second-in-command. You _remember_ Megatron, don't you?" The sarcasm wasn't lost on her friend. "You know, the clinically-insane psychopathic instigator of this whole global mess? Remember him? Remember the shrieking little pit-spawn at his side, always trying to stab him in the back?"

"Indeed," Forceps inclined her head. "I _also_ recall how he seems to be in several quite loosely-connected pieces, at present, with persistent attacks of fitting, and amnesia, if he truly is who you think he is."

"Come on, Sepp, you're not making this easy. I can't ignore this! I'll tell my superiors, I swear-"

Forceps turned a knowing smile onto her. "And be suspended for ten dozen orns for going against your superior's direct order _not_ to tangle with high-ranking Decepticons?

"But-… that-… this is different!" Outsmarted. By a _medic_! "That slagger has brought out the worst in you, Forceps," Pulsar folded her arms and vented exhaust in a huffy little sigh. "You're never normally so damn sneaky."

"Oh, I'll fight if I'm backed into a corner, Pulse." A massive green hand patted the pale blue shoulder. "Don't you worry about that. And I don't just mean I'll fight _you_. I'm no lightweight. I know just which actuator cable to snip if he starts getting troublesome."


	8. Chapter 8

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Eight**

**Disclaimer:** As ever. Author neither claims nor (intentionally) implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any other character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. Etc, and all that jazz.

**A/N:** Thanks again to my reviewers. :) I hope this isn't plodding _too_ much.

Shorter one this time.

* * *

For the nineteenth time that cycle, Thundercracker and Skywarp were poring over the morbid spoils of their raid on the _Sphere_'s offices. Repeated viewings had – thankfully – numbed away some of the worst of their horror, and they were better able to channel their righteous indignation into a sort of productive vigour, but both had espoused the view that it would have been _more _helpful to have actually had Screamer here to help look for himself. Gleaning information from a video the entire police forensics department had failed to glean information from was seeming a bit like a pipe-dream.

It hadn't taken the pair of them very long to work out _why_ Refractor had turned the original datacard over to the police – there genuinely _wasn't_ anything else that could be gleaned from it (and certainly nothing the editor could have turned into profit). The footage had been very highly processed, and Thundercracker's guess was that it had _not_ been done by the paper. It didn't looks like the half-processed work of someone trying to protect his scoop, but the dedicated work of someone trying to protect _themselves_. It was just too… too what? Precise? Comprehensive? Well done? All of the above? Whatever label was ultimately applied to it, the algorithms that had been used had done their work very well. Not only did the sequence disguise the _silhouettes_ of Starscream's assailants, it also disguised their proportions. The three faceless machines were like mobile shadows, punctured with glowing holes where their optics would have been, and there was no way to even be accurate about exactly how _big_ they were. The only thing they could work out was that they must have been pretty sizeable to have overpowered their commander with that degree of ease.

"You know, Warp, there's nothing to say that the mech that's abducted Screamer isn't the same one as beat him to slag in the first place," Thundercracker pointed out, not looking particularly happy at the thought. "Those were some big footprints we found out there on the street."

"Ah, TC, whatever would I do without you here to reassure me it's all going to be all right?" Skywarp groused, darkly. "You're such a ray of sunshine, sometimes."

"Yeah, well, hark at you, spouting off twee little fleshie idioms! I'm trying to be a smidge _realistic_ about things, here."

"No-o, you're being so full of _doom_ you're forgetting who you are. You're not _Dirge_, you're _Thundercracker_, remember?" Skywarp affected a slooow, stupid tone of voice, and waved his hands. "_THUN-der-CRA-ker_. Dirge is the ugly Megatron loyalist who looks like someone attacked him with a pencil sharpener."

Thundercracker gave him a friendly swat around the back of his helm, but his mood had lightened. "Well, somebody's got to think about the potential for bad things, because _you're_ certainly not taking this seriously, since your little panic-attack earlier."

"Hey! That was _not_ a panic attack. I just…" Skywarp waved his hands, as if trying to conjure up the excuse he wanted. "Over-reacted a bit. No big deal."

The friendly swat became a condescending pat. "Good Warpy."

"How about I give you a good, friendly pat square in the faceplates from my knuckles? Cut it out." Skywarp sulked. "Come on, you're the clever one, supposedly. What are we going to do now?"

Thundercracker frowned, thoughtfully. "Well, maybe we need to divide and conquer, as it were. The more people we ask, the more likely we are to find someone who will know something, right?"

"Is it really _wise_ to be splitting up, now they know we're onto them?"

"Well, okay, so probably not. But we need to cover more ground, more quickly. We'll just have to make sure we don't get so over-energised we can't fly, right?"

"Chance would be a fine thing," Skywarp said, sourly, and made a face at Thundercracker's tasteless attempt at humour. Neither had had the opportunity to do much more than snatch the occasional breem or two for rest and refuel, and they didn't have a whole lot of the precious energon left anyway, even _after_ accepting the _Sphere_'s "payoff". It wasn't that there was no money to _buy_ the fuel, just that finding someone willing to _sell_ it was getting harder. Not only were trustworthy salespeople hard to come by, those that _were_ vaguely trustworthy seemed to have taken a collective offence to the way the Seekers had made their point to the _Sphere_'s editor.

"Look, TC, no offence, but I think you have your 'thinking' brain installed back-to-front," Skywarp went on, tiredly.

"How do you figure that?"

"Well, firstly there's the small matter that _they_ are in all likelihood the biggest honking great bot-slagging machines we've seen since getting here. Then, there's the fact that we have _zero idea _what they look like, _and_ they know we're onto them, _and_ they probably know who _we_ are and what _we_ look like, and if we're really unlucky, where we're _living_." Skywarp pouted. "Your logic says this is a _good _thing, but I think your brain is running in 'backwards'." He gave him a probing look. "Are you _sure _the editor didn't land a hit on you? Didn't, I don't know, electrocute your central processor, or something?"

Thundercracker managed to smile. "No, think about it. It makes sense. With all what you said in mind, with any luck they'll save us a bit of effort, right? Maybe _they_ will come looking for _us_."

"…just the words I was hoping you _wouldn't_ say."

0o0o0o0o0

The murmuring of soft voices from the main living area disturbed Scarlet from a hazy recharge. Calling him by the name of the second in command of the entire Decepticon army seemed to be tempting fate, on the off chance he _wasn't_ who the policebot thought he was, so for now he was continuing under the pseudonym. 'Scarlet' wasn't that offensive a moniker, anyway – a little effeminate, maybe, but then so was his voice. Perhaps that was to be his lot in life anyway – straddling gender boundaries in a brave new world! Or something.

He let his optics flicker online, and lay placidly and listened to the voices out in the main room, for a little while. Seemed to be spending half his life in recharge, at the moment. Had he always been so dopey, so half-conscious? But it was nice and cool and comfortable. Everything was just ticking over, no effort, no faults. Actually getting up and moving around seemed counterproductive, when he knew it'd make his relays and actuators all kick in and get hot and uncomfortable. His hosts had literally renewed and replaced miles of coolant lines already, purging and refilling the system with fresh, clean, efficient new refrigerant as they went, but there were still areas where things weren't running very efficiently and things still overheated.

He sat up, carefully – still more than a little leery of getting any more leaky fractures in the older substructure – and swung his legs around over the floor, waggled his feet thoughtfully. He'd not had much chance to get used to moving about, yet; there was usually someone trying to do repairs to some component or another and attempting to walk about while they were working got him angrily clicked at and threatened with the stasis mantle again. He had to practice, though – had to test components, optimise their performance and revise their values in his diagnostics, and just laying inert wasn't helping achieve that. His gyroscopes were taking a while to fully recalibrate and he was still a little tottery, so not _all_ the copious dents still on his battered body were solely due to the initial assault. He levered himself awkwardly to the floor, waited for his gyros to settle – for once there was no rush of anticipated dizziness – and made his way toward the doorway.

The topic of conversation was one of the normal ones – Blue. Forceps and Spotweld would often have abbreviated little discussions about it while they were working on him. He lurked just behind the wall and just listened in, for a moment, sensing they might not be quite so open if they knew their 'resident Decepticon' was overhearing.

"…have forensics made any headway since you got the samples?"

"Not really. Cali says it's a mutant viral preparation, but she hasn't really got very far with the analysis." Pause. "She's still not sure how it works, even, although she thinks once she's done that she can get a counter-agent designed. Bet that'll make Spots happy."

The first misleadingly deep female voice was Forceps, of course, and the lighter one that replied was the policebot. Scarlet had the continued urge to sit on her and grill her for information, because she seemed to know a lot more about him than she was telling, but she'd been – perhaps wisely – keeping her distance. Didn't trust him. Probably rightly so.

"Ecstatic, in fact. We _need _a counter agent," Spotweld agreed, and for once any trace of uncertainty was completely absent from his voice. "More than anything. Even more than we need to arrest the culprits responsible for creating the stuff. We can't keep turning machines away the way we have been, but there's nothing else we _can_ do with them, yet." There was a second of hesitation, and then he went on in a lower tone; "we had our first case of that new one, today."

"Screaming Blue?" Forceps guessed.

"That's the one. Having a counter-agent might mean we could have actually done something for him?"

"I thought the stuff was _addictive_, not lethal," Pulsar challenged.

"Oh, don't get me wrong, he's not dead? He-… well…" There was another of those reluctant pauses. "Hasn't actually woken up. Catatonic," Spotweld replied, softly. "He's completely nonresponsive. Online, and maintaining autonomous functions, but… there's nothing going on in any cognitive relays? Advanced processors are all disrupted to the point of being non-functional. We might be able to repair the damage, if we can work out the systems the Blue attacked, but he'll probably remain disabled for life."

"Have the viral signatures given forensics any leads worth chasing?" Scarlet asked, at last emerging from behind his doorway.

Forceps gave him a little nod of acknowledgement in greeting, but Pulsar pursed her lips in annoyance and refused to answer.

"Oh, _please_," Scarlet smirked, and limped his way to a convenient seat at the end of the table, where his wings wouldn't get too much in the way. "Don't stop the discussion on _my_ account. It's not as if I couldn't hear you perfectly well in there, to start with."

Spotweld pushed a spare mug of energon towards him. "Viral signatures?" he prompted.

Scarlet squashed the urge to grin stupidly at the idea they'd anticipated him joining them – where else had the spare mug come from? "I've been reading up in my spare time – not like I have much else to do," he said, giving Spotweld a little nod of thanks, and shrugged. "If this is a viral preparation, there's usually a creator's signature in there somewhere – if not from the manipulator, then from the original designer. Allows for backtrack if there's a fault, you can chase the sequence of manipulations back to the nearest clean preparation. Right, Forceps?"

The surgeon nodded, and gave the grim-faced police officer a curious glance. "Certainly applies to viral anaesthesia and analgesia. Had to do it myself, once or twice, when we had a recall go out."

Pulsar grumbled wordlessly for a moment, before glancing hotly up and meeting the blue gaze at the end of the table. "Cali tells me the stuff is unsigned," she replied, at long last, gruffly. "So she's having trouble chasing down the originator."

"And you trust this… this 'Cali', do you?"

"_Calibrator_ is the head of the forensics department," Pulsar corrected, putting emphasis on the name, as if to warn him off using the friendly nickname. "She's been keeping us all appraised of developments, like the new variant on the streets." She paused, then added, darkly; "They named it after you, you know. _Screaming_ Blue."

"I'm _honoured_." Scarlet touched his fingertips to his chest, and offered up a dark, cynical little smile.

"Figures a Decepticon would think that was a compliment." She replied to the smile with a glare.

"I'm guessing the interpretation of sarcasm isn't your strongest suit?" The smile had already turned into a _Primus-help-me_ gaze cast skywards. "All right. Listen. Right now, I don't have a whole lot to do except sit on my aft and consume all Forceps' supplies of energon. Maybe I could help out."

Pulsar inhaled energon clean down the wrong channel in surprise. "You? _Help_?" she managed, after spluttering the worst of it out of her ventilation systems. "What can _you_ possibly do?"

"Right now? Not much, I grant you that. Even my mind is still in too many pieces. _But_." Scarlet shrugged, loosely. "If I am who you think I am, and they're using _my_ 'murder' to promote their campaign, it doesn't take one of Cybertron's greatest minds to work out that it might have _upset_ the 'powerful Decepticon' they elected as their unwilling campaign leader." He wrinkled his lips in a feral grin. "Trust me. I will be having words with the ringleader before all this is over, and I can promise you that _they_ will be the ones to come out of the conversation looking worse than they did when they went in."

0o0o0o0o0

In his new role as Chief Blue-pusher-finder, Skywarp felt rather like bait, and didn't much care for the feeling. He stood in the middle of the street outside the _Flywheel_, not even bothering to try to hide, gazing up at the boarded windows and wondering. He'd come back here purely because it was where it had all started, and he had no other idea for leads. Inviting himself _inside_ was probably going to be inviting disaster, because he had no idea what was actually behind the walls – might be nothing at all, might be a whole Blue den of iniquity, might be the entire police force – but he felt halfway inclined to go in anyway. Just to take a look. See if the police had missed anything. (Yeah, Warp, because _that_ was quite likely. Newbie CSI Skywarp finds the one critical clue the entire highly-trained Autobot forensics team missed. Pfft.)

"You don' want to be hangin' around too long out here," a voice said, and he glanced sidelong to find an Empty in the mouth or a narrow alley, watching him out of sad, dim yellow optics. "There's bad things been happenin' in there, even after it shut. You don' want to get involved in this mess."

"What d'you mean, bad things?" Skywarp challenged, keeping his arms relaxed at his sides and his cannons offline, trying to maintain an even, non-confrontational voice and keep the Empty talking.

The Empty switched his tired gaze to stare up the dirtied sides of the silent building. "Sleeper still comes here, ev'ry now and then," he explained, with a little nod to himself. "Drops off his supplies, rewards the faithful, gives the traitorous a 'good stern talkin' to'." He mimed shooting himself in the temple. "Then he's gone again. As hard to catch hold of as a solar breeze."

"You ever seen him?" Skywarp felt a tingle of excitement. This might actually be _progress_.

"A few times, yeah," the Empty nodded. "But only the once wi'out his baffle on."

"Baffle? Big bad Blue pusher wears a full-body sensor blind?" Skywarp smirked. "What a _wuss_."

"Ha! Don't you believe it. So what if he doesn' want anyone knowin' who he is?" The Empty's dim optics flickered briefly brighter, amusedly. "Don't you start thinkin' of him as _afraid_. Sleeper ain't afraid of nothin', 'cept bein' recognised, and with good reason. I seen him once without his shadow. Big mech. Powerful. You wouldn' want to tangle with _him _alone. Construction mech, all belt-drive and stupid-big power converters. No offence, Seeker, but he could squish you all on his own wi'out you landin' a scratch on him."

"Not only am I not working alone, I don't plan on staying grounded long enough to let him catch hold of me," Skywarp argued, sniffily. "I don't have these wings just to look pretty."

"Well, whoever you're workin' with, I wish you good huntin', Decepticon." The Empty inclined his head. "Hope you catch him."

Skywarp jumped to hear the name of his faction come from the Empty's vocaliser. "How did you-"

"Eh, you're a Seeker. It was a Seeker what got murdered, back then. You flyin' terrors never work alone, right? Figures his wing-brothers would come lookin' for vengeance." The Empty smiled, grimly.

"What makes you think I'm not here just for _me_? To see what _I_ can get out of this?" Skywarp was quick to argue. "And we're _not_ brothers."

"In terms of genealogy? Maybe not, but y'don have to be sparked from the same creator to share a mindset." He waggled a scolding finger. "I might not have a home, a job nor a means of supportin' meself, but that don't mean I ain't got _sight_. Bein' an Empty don't mean I can't see what's goin' on any more than bein' a Seeker means there's nothin' more than air between them cranial vents." He waved the finger in the rough general direction of Skywarp's head.

"So in the knowledge that I'm your _enemy_, why exactly are you helping me?"

"I want this purge-fluid off the streets." The Empty glared. "A mech doesn' know what's safe to drink, no more, and when you're scrapin' out your living on the mean streets, existing off what little you can find, you don't want no accidental intoxications."

"That wasn't exactly what I meant." Skywarp's glower quirked into a lopsided grin. Nice to see that in spite of their noble words, some Empties were still as self-serving as any good Decepticon.

The Empty gave him a vague smile. "Always knew where we stood, with you Decepticons," he admitted. "If you was gonna kill us, that's what you'd do. You might make it noisy and violent, but at least we knew what you was up to. There's a kinda bastardised set of principles in the way you act – a sorta predictable, warped honour. None of this softly-softly, sneakin'-in-shadows skulduggery. With Blue, we ain't got a clue where we stand, no more." He grinned. "Now don't get all offended and shooty at me, Seeker, but your lot are the lesser of the two evils, and we want you back."

"All right, all right, you made your point. Here." Skywarp grinned, tiredly, and handed over a mostly-finished cube of Energon. "It's all I got on me, right now. But don't you dare tell anyone, or I'll be after _your_ head, Empty."

The Empty clutched at the cube and gulped back half the contents in one single big swallow. "Not like anyone would believe me if'n I _did_ tell 'em," he chuckled.

0o0o0o0o0

"You will notify me if you see anything? Look, you can get me on this frequency. I'm not asking much, just trying to find someone. They might be the only lead as to where my cousin went."

"Yeah, yeah. If we see anything, we'll tell you, Seeker. So long as we have your assurance that there'll be no, ah… _reprisals_." The big mech had his arms folded, staring down at the smaller blue flier with the sort of look that meant he was 'lying through his back teeth', as the humans said, and had absolutely no intention of giving the Seeker even the smallest leads.

Thundercracker had left Skywarp to chase their few leads on the Blue. That Skywarp's 'shoot first, question later' tendencies would get him into some form of trouble, he was fairly convinced, but it seemed the lesser of the two evils – he knew it would manage to extract _no_ information from these already-scaredy groundlings and might even get the police called on them. Not, admittedly, something Thundercracker was particularly _scared_ of, but it'd be a pretty good way to snuff out all and any potential for further searching. Having an active arrest warrant on your name wasn't the greatest situation to be in when trying to conduct semi-discreet searches.

There were plenty of big machines around this neighbourhood – a lot of them even bigger than he was, and he was keeping his thrusters prepped for a quick getaway just in case. So far, things had been going well – after a fashion. No-one had attacked him, and plenty had even allowed him close enough to make leading enquiries as to the location of his wingmate. But no-one had given him any useful information, and none of the feet matched. All the really _big _machines, with feet the right general size, had squarish margins. None had the obviously rounded leading edge. His search was stagnating.

"Well, thanks for your help, anyway," Thundercracker turned back onto the street, and set off towards the docks. He'd agreed to meet Skywarp there in another breem or two, so they could go over plans – ha, plans! What were _they_? – and pool what little information they'd gathered.

0o0o0o0o0

Forceps had her arms full. The primary pump in Scarlet's left hip had failed, and when she'd investigated she'd found it packed with an iron-hard crystalline mix of energon, joint-fluid and epoxy resin. Cleaning it would have taken orns of hard labour, if she'd even succeeded in getting all the muck off it, and would have caused so many microfractures that it'd remain vulnerable for the rest of its lifetime. Better to just remove and replace the thing, and be done with it!

Unfortunately, the General Hospital's supply depot, where she knew there were a couple of good-quality dimensionally-appropriate spare pumps, was the next district over. And her unanticipated meeting with Forceps' Decepticon houseguest had put an unexpected fear of Primus into Pulsar. The grav-cycle had decided things were _far_ too dangerous for her friend to be going too far if she was alone, and had insisted on becoming a police escort. (Just in case anyone else had found out about Scarlet, and just in case anyone approached the surgeon about him – ignoring the fact that the massive green femme was far more capable of looking after herself than Pulsar herself was.) And unfortunately, Pulsar's superiors had agreed it was probably a reasonable precaution to take, what with all the attacks that had been going on lately…

Didn't mean _Forceps_ was happy about it. Police paranoia was rubbing off on her, and making her twitchy and irritable. Wasn't as if she was some silly defenceless little pastel-coloured slip of a femme who needed protecting – she might be _slow_, but she was _strong_, perfectly happy to plant a powerful fist between the optics of any assailant, and was armed with enough inbuilt surgical laser-scalpels to make a tank proud. Primus, she'd probably end up protecting her scrawny little "escort" if anything _did_ kick off – the little police marksbot might be proud of her accuracy, but should she lose her pistol she'd be completely unarmed.

The streets were thankfully quiet. Pulsar was muttering softly, unconsciously drawing closer to her companion as they walked, but Forceps didn't bother trying to catch the words – she had an idea what she'd be grumbling about without needing to listen too hard. There were a fair number of individuals out and about – mechs with suspicious faces and shifty manners, watching with thinly-veiled hostility as they moved down the street. Pulsar was just being unreasonably jittery about them.

They rounded a corner onto the main road, only a breem or two's brisk walk from home, and some distance further down the street a departing pair of wings caught Forceps' attention. "Seeker," she observed, curiously. Blue. Sleek. The exact same model as her patient, too, looked like! "Come on, Short-Aft. I'm going to go chat to it."

Pulsar caught her arm. "Uh-uh. No contact," she corrected, glancing warily down the street at the flier.

"For you, maybe. Boxer's ruling doesn't apply to me."

"I'm your assigned custodian, remember? Our agreement if you wanted to go running these mean streets with your arms full of expensive equipment? You can't go near him without me coming along, _ergo_, the ruling applies to you, too."

"Fine. By that reasoning, if I don't have expensive equipment on my person, I suppose our agreement is null and void, correct? So here, _you _carry this for me-" Without giving her a moment to argue, Forceps deposited the crate of supplies squarely into Pulsar's skinny arms; the grav-cycle gave an _uuuuh!_ of surprise and literally _sagged_ under the weight. "-and I'll be right back."

"Sepp- hey! HEY! That's _not_ how it works!" Pulsar howled at the departing back, but her knees were trembling with effort and she couldn't chase her to argue the point. "You pit-spawned Primus-damned-…"

Thankfully, Pulsar's voice rapidly dwindled in the background. It went a small way towards reassuring Forceps that the screeching police cycle wouldn't scare the flier away – Seekers were renowned for being more than a little fickle, and if it thought it was threatened it might just make a dash for it.

Up ahead, the graceful jet paused at a crossroads, glanced briefly in both directions, then turned off on the lefthand branch. _Going to lose him. _Forceps lumbered into a trot. "Hey, wait up-!" she called out, irritably aware that she was probably just outside its audio-range. "Hey _Seeker_! _Wait_!"

But… too late. There was the low, distant rumble of powerful engines, and a sleek blue arrow arced away skywards _just_ as she rounded the corner.

"Damn it, you deaf old scrap-heap!" she yelled after it, defeated. "Is that what big engines do to you, huh? _Burn out your audio sensors_?" She watched as the blue arrow dwindled to a dot, and then vanished altogether beneath the skyline, before finally turning away to go and relieve Pulsar of her burden.

The policebot was glaring so hotly it was a wonder lasers weren't shooting from her eyes. Her knees had buckled under the weight of machine parts and she looked like she was about to collapse on herself altogether.

"You could have put it down, you know," Forceps pointed out, taking the crate easily from her smaller counterpart.

"And put my back out in the process?" Pulsar winced and straightened, stretching out the bunched connectors and checking they were all still in good working order.

"That's why you bend _from the knees_." Forceps crouched very slightly to demonstrate.

"Oh, ha ha. Because that ton weight hasn't already done a number on _them,_ to start with! Dammit, Sepp, this isn't all some big joke."

"No? I thought it was rather amusing." Forceps smiled, striding along and forcing Pulsar to trot to keep up.

"And you didn't even catch him, anyway," the smaller female groused, arms folded.

"Not yet, but you should know that one little failure doesn't doom the whole campaign, Pulse. We just… try, try again."


	9. Chapter 9

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Nine**

**Disclaimer:** Author neither claims nor (intentionally) implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any other character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators.

**A/N:** ...the plotbadgers are REALLY gnawing at my ankles now. Guh. It doesn't help a girl's writer's block when new stories/sequels are springing up in the braingears. It's disjointed enough already without having NEW things clamouring for the attention. :P

:flails on floor:

* * *

…Been sitting here _far _too long. Scarlet stretched first his shoulders, then his arms, and stared at the screen for several long non-comprehending moments, feeling snow-blind from all the information he'd soaked up. His new components were still and achey, and he itched to just have his repairs finished. There were still empty sockets on his battered shoulders; he gave them a curious, cursory examination with his fingertips, and wondered how important whatever it was that had been removed was. Deeply written code implied it was something with an important defensive/offensive role to play, so he guessed it must be a weapon of some sort, but as to _what,_ he couldn't quite work out. He wanted them back, whatever they were, if only to feel complete. Although he knew they had probably been removed solely to get them out of the way rather than because they didn't trust him with them, it left him feeling like his claws had been clipped.

At least his almost omnipresent hosts/warders/whoever had finally left him in peace – he guessed so that either _he_ or _they_ could recharge, or refuel a little, or something. Spotweld had certainly gone to get a few cycles offline – he'd already been dozy, and apologised needlessly profusely for having to go and get his head down for a little while before actually _going_ – but Forceps hadn't even announced she was going anywhere before vanishing altogether, the low drone of her cooling fans completely absent.

Rather than spend another cycle or two doing nothing but recharge – which seemed pretty pointless, given that his energy levels were all double-green – he'd elected to begin his own research. The small computer out in the main living area was devoid of any sort of password gates or checkpoints – they apparently trusted him enough to give him completely full access to anything he chose to look at. A little voice inside him said such an action was incredibly foolish, and a large part of him felt inclined to say 'frag it' and go seeking out information on who he was, his history, and why the Pit it was that pain-in-the-aft police officer kept on making those snide insinuations… But then abusing his hosts' good natures would only give her _more_ reasons to be snide at him, and he rather fancied keeping a hold of his computing privileges for now.

The idea someone had named a near-lethal narcotic in "honour" of his supposed murder had set a slow-burning fire of determination in his spark – and a single-minded desire to bring the slaggers down at all costs. How. Fragging. _Dare_! They. He ate up every tiny insignificant scrap of information he could hunt down, mentally databasing and cross-referencing it all. Problem was, there wasn't a whole lot to go on – he could do with being party to a little sensitive information. Maybe he could bribe the policebot for some of the information the press hadn't got hold of.

Reviewing the footage of his 'murder' – all in the name of research, of course, nothing _at all _to do with his quest for identity – kindled the fires to burn hotter and faster inside him, but he couldn't watch for many moments. A throbbing phantom pain at the base of his helm prompted him to discontinue the feed altogether and sit back in his seat, aching all over.

He'd been sat here blindly absorbing information for far too long. A full three cycles had passed without his knowledge, and he wasn't a lot further forward than he had been before. And now a silent inner voice compelled him to get up. Something unspoken told him to get back to his feet and move. Where exactly he thought he was going to go, with half his body still barely-functioning and only just retaining energon, he wasn't sure, he just knew he had to get up. Had to move. Been sitting here for too long. Been inactive for too long. Find a thermal, catch a jetstream, feel soft cool gentle air over sleek fuselage.

He cycled the stuffy indoor air through his systems; it was cool, but for once it didn't soothe his restless spark. It felt dusty and over-used. Over cycled. He wanted a cycle or two in good clean, clear, dust-free atmosphere, sailing high and lazy in sweetest air.

_I remember flying,_ he realised, gazing up at the sky through the high narrow window above his head. _Too deeply-written to have escaped me. _These were not just memories of how to do a thing, but hardwired protocols. Simulated reference points. _Get out there. Get __up__ there. Dance and weave through gusting winds, conflicting thermals. _His wings quivered involuntarily. This must explain why he was so very antsy – built to fly, to defy gravity, to claim the stratosphere as his playground, not to be caged and confined by injuries, grounded by his body's inability to do what he wanted it to.

The knowledge that he probably wouldn't even be able to get off the ground in his current condition was no barrier to the sudden misplaced enthusiasm. His left foot-turbine was already rumbling softly as he lurched to his feet and towards the door, canting hard over on his bad side.

He wanted height. He wanted to go high and fast and find fresh, sweet, chilled air, cooled by outer space, not these over-worked refrigerant systems. He wanted to feel the frost on his armour, the pinpoint heat of his thrusters as they propelled him up, _up_, away from ground, away from gravity, away from everyone trying to hold him down and hold him back. He wanted to scream his defiance at the very stars themselves. _You are not too far away for me to reach out and take you._

He imagined the chilly night-time air rushing across him, bathing him in excited crosswinds, cresting gently on the thermals that bloomed up from the city as it cooled from the heat of the day. He sucked in cold air from the street, and felt it tingle through his regulators, venting dust and microscopic fragments of enamel and substructure from old damage. _This is who I am. This is what I do._ He stretched out his arms to match the pitch of his wings, offlined his optics, lifted his face into the breeze from the street and imagined he was already coasting on the stratosphere, the rumble of the city becoming the soft song of powerful engines. _I am supreme aerial prowess made physical. I am flying perfection made metal. _He revved his engines. _I am power and defiance and I will reclaim my playground. _

His right thruster betrayed him. While he'd been semi-happily grounded, it had been quiescent, but now it spoke to his diagnostics of a fuel shortage. Autonomous relays kicked over to correct the deficit, but the faulty pump in his hip – temporarily patched back in to keep the circuits patent – couldn't provide the required energon. The straining pump down at ankle level began to shudder with effort, and triggered one of the rolling cascade faults that everyone thought had been cured – a trembling foot soon turned into full-body shaking.

He clung helplessly to the doorframe, juddering fingers leaving behind them trails of worn blue paint. _What-… what was happening to him? Why couldn't he stop shaking-?_ _Why wouldn't his body respond correctly to his instructions?! _

"Wh-what – did – you – d-do to – m-me?" he demanded, the words stuttering out in a flurry of angry little bites of sound as Forceps, finally returning with her supplies, lurched into a heavy sprint across the street to help him. _How _dare_ she sabotage him like this! How _dare_ she mislead him into thinking they trusted him on his own. _"Turn – this – off – n-now!"He stabbed an accusing finger at her and almost overbalanced.

"Turn what off?" She caught his arm before he could collapse.

"This – sab-sabotage! I'm – not – go-going – anywhere – so – you can – turn – it – off!" He looked absolutely furious, forced to cling like a hurt sparkling to the giant green female while he waited for his body to resume behaving, but absolutely unable to _display _his fury in any way other than verbal. "You – only – have – t-to – _say_ if – you – d-don't – want –m-me – sneak-ing – away, – not – rig – it so – I can't – even – walk!" he spat, trying to push her away but unable to get enough co-ordination together in his arms to succeed. "Now – get _off _– me." He twisted away, but to his endless shame he couldn't remain upright, his knees unwilling to support him. She caught him under the wings as he staggered, and maintained her gentle grip while he clutched for another support. "Let me– argh! Let – me – go."

"A few astro-seconds of patience would do you wonders, sometimes," she informed him, grimly, ignoring his impotent struggling and watching as the convulsions finally began to ease. "You have my absolute assurance this was nothing _I_ did to you. You'd been suffering fits like these long before you regained consciousness – although I _thought_ they'd resolved. There must still be a system instability in there somewhere."

"A likely – st-story," he grumbled, but had begun to relax. His grasp had firmed up and his knees were at least capable of supporting his weight, and his words were more like hiccups than those jagged little sound fragments they had been. "You don't – want – me leaving yet – because – it'll mean – you lose your – little project."

"Well, there _is_ that, but I wouldn't stop you leaving if you were _that _determined. What were you doing before the convulsions started?" she probed, gently.

There was a guarded flicker in Scarlet's optics, and he pulled a face. _I wanted to fly. _It sounded so… unforgivably juvenile. "Nothing important. Just… getting some fresh air."

"Or were you going back to _him_, Decepticon?" Pulsar challenged, still standing down in the street, gun in hand. "Back to _Megatron_? To call in reinforcements so you can carry out whatever deceitful plan you're playing in the background?"

"Why yes, of _course_ I was going back to Megatron," the flier spat, shakily, optics burning down at her with a mixture of rage and humiliation, struggling to regain his footing without having to cling like grim death to Forceps. At least he'd regained control of his voice. "Given that I don't even know _who he is_!"

"We only have your word for that. For all we know, you could have faked the seizure, too-"

"All right, all right," Forceps interjected, wearily, before her patient could work himself into too foul a temper. "Enough. The pair of you. Pulse, hush up and put the gun away. And as for _you_," she glared down at Scarlet, then up at Spotweld who'd appeared in the doorway. She jerked her head in a little _come hither_ gesture to him. "If you feel capable of actually _sitting still _for a breem or two, Spots can get that troublemaking pump in your hip replaced."

Spotweld looked like he'd been recharging, oblivious to the world, and offered a guilty arm as a support. Scarlet brushed it aside, irritably, and tottered unsteadily through the door; his wings were quivering.

"I can't believe you actually _trust_ him," Pulsar grumbled, darkly, at last subspacing her pistol.

"Well, to be honest, I trust my own eyes _more_," Forceps admitted, watching the pale wings vanish into the indoor gloom. "There's damage in there, for certain. He might be stringing us a line about _how much _he recalls, but I'm confident that the amnesia is genuine, and that he's not just playing us for fools."

"Sepp," Pulsar turned her best wheedling look on her friend. "Please. Let me at least tell the Chief Inspector, just in case. I'm worried about you. If a Blue loyalist finds out about Star-… Scarlet, they might come looking. To finish the job! I don't want you dragged any further into this because you're too much of a sap to even say 'no' to an injured Decepticon."

Forceps stared back, quietly, and after a moment or two her brows pulled together into a glower. "All right," she buckled, at last. "But _only_ if you name-drop. I have 'a patient', all right? I don't want armed police coming storming through my doorway because you've told them we have the Decepticon second-in-command – and I'm still not convinced that's who he is – temporarily lodging with us. Got it?"

0o0o0o0o0o0

"What _was_ this all about?" Spotweld prompted, gently, following the red Seeker back inside.

Scarlet sat heavily on his aft on the floor, and bent to examine the traitorous right thruster. "It's not something _you_'d understand, _groundling_," he grumbled, softly, peeling back the layers of armour to inspect the substructure.

The emphasis on the latter word, and the way the flier's wings were still trembling very slightly, told Spotweld all he needed to know. "How much more work will you need to be able to fly?"

Scarlet glanced up, briefly. "It'd just be nice to know I'm not going to start fitting every time I try to do something strenuous," he replied, grimly. "Don't want to fall out of the sky because of it."

"That's a little strong, isn't it?" Spotweld hunkered down next to him.

"Do you know how much power it takes to get airborne, and stay that way? If just walking to your door did it, what in the _Pit_ is going to happen if I try to _fly_?"

Spotweld spread his hands, and helped Scarlet up to the repair bench. "I'm sure it's just to do with the faulty pump in your hip?" he soothed. "Once we get it replaced and the fuel flowing properly, the problems should spontaneously resolve?"

A blue finger waggled warningly. "It better."

0o0o0o0o0o0

"Sir? Chief? Can I speak to you for a minute? I'm worried about Forceps."

Hardline glanced up from his paperwork; Pulsar had her head around his door, looking antsy about something. "Surgeon Forceps? Why? She's a big femme, can look after herself pretty well from what I hear," he said, with a little shrug. "What makes you think she's in danger?"

"Well-… It's, ah… She says she has an amnesiac patient with a Seeker-based brain," she explained, trying to comply with Forceps instructions and not give too much information away, but also trying not to outright _lie_. "Who she can't fix until she gets a good look at an operational cortex. And she's, um… well, trying to get in contact with that Seeker Nightsun and I saw, back at the _Flywheel_."

"And what exactly possessed you to tellher about _him_, constable?" Hardline's optics glittered darkly.

"It was just a-… just a passing comment!" _Just jam your foot right inside your main intake next time, it'll be quicker_, she scolded herself. "I mean, that is-… she only told me about her patient after I'd said so. I was-" Pulsar made an apologetic face, and admitted; "I was grousing about Superintendent Boxer. His instruction not to get involved. I didn't think it was fair. And now I've sort of kinda got involved by accident, anyway-"

"You would seem to be leading the conversation somewhere, constable. Much as I enjoy playing the mind games of my junior staff, right now we have more important things to be doing, wouldn't you agree?" He gave her a look. "Just come out and say it."

"Okay." An intake of cool air, to stabilise systems. "First of all, you have my absolute assurance that I _didn't_ go against Superintendent Boxer's direct orders," she explained, which made him frown in suspicion. "_But_. While I was on patrol. And accompanying Forceps back from the supply depot. I almost ran into a Seeker, this evening. Grounded. Blue. No insignia, but it looked like, um… someone pretty high up in the ranks."

Hardline glanced up, and the suspicion had faded from his glare to be replaced by concern. "Your hunch?" he prompted.

"Thundercracker, sir."

Hardline let his gaze drop back to his desk, and examined his fingers. "Was he alone?"

"Yes sir, so far as I could tell."

"Anyone else skyborne?"

"No-one that I could see. Skies were clear, aside from a couple of shuttles."

"Well, given recent events at the _Sphere_, we should at least anticipate Skywarp is here, too, somewhere. Possibly working with him, at some level. And we know that Starscream _was_ here, until getting caught up with the Blue Loyalists."

Pulsar squashed the urge to blurt out that he _still was_ here, hiding out in Forceps' spare room.

"Which begs the question, why are Megatron's elite here in the first place? What do they want?"

"Do you think it's to do with Blue, sir?"

The riot tank tapped his fingertips together and nodded. "Oh, it's something to do with the Blue, absolutely. No question about it. But _what _is the connection, I wonder…" he frowned, thoughtfully.

_What if the two Seekers are looking for __Starscream__? _Pulsar found herself wondering. _What if there __is__ only a tenuous connection to the Blue, all this is completely coincidental? _Another more disquieting thought struck her. _Primus, what if they find Sepp first?! She might hold her own against a couple of loyalist thugs, but Megatron's elite? What chance does she stand against two heavily armed and highly dangerous Seekers?! They sure won't give her or Spots time to explain what's been happening before they start shooting-_

"See if you can raise the _Ark_," Hardline instructed, at last, interrupting her train of though. "They may be able to give you some pointers, might have an inkling of what Megatron's up to. He seems to have elected to send his deputies alone, which implies he's up to something on Earth, still."

"…_Me_, sir?" She must have misheard. Contacting the Earth-based Autobots was something the upper ranks did, not constables.

"Yes, officer, you. You seem to have had the luck of the draw when it comes to seeing random Decepticon spies in action, after all." He gave her a lopsided smile. "You may be the only one party to certain details they want to know."

0o0o0o0o0o0

"Prowl, you got a call from Cybertron," was all the message had said. Helpful, but not very informative. A call from whom, to start with? Long-lost relatives, or misguided debt collectors? Could be either, the way things had got so war-muddled lately.

The face on the long-distance viewer belonged to an unfamiliar female – comparatively dramatically coloured, primarily white with a royal blue and electric yellow trim. Her badges were small – one on her 'collarbone', one at the temple. _Police?_ he wondered. "Good afternoon…" he greeted, curiously, glancing down at the identifiers that flashed up to accompany the message. "…constable, was it? What seems to be the problem?"

"I apologise for the intrusion, sir," she said, grimly. "But I was hoping I could get your opinion on something."

"Go ahead," he gave her a nod. "I imagine – and hope – you're not the sort to go to the sort of effort to put a call all the way over here, rather than speak to your superiors, if there wasn't a pressing reason for it."

"It was my superior that suggested I speak to you in the first place," she confessed. "As we don't have anything particularly conclusive to work with, and wondered if you might perhaps know something we don't."

"All right. We'll see if we have any information that can help you. What's the issue, your side?"

"Well, aside from the problem we're having with the Blue – I'm not sure if you know much about that? – we've got some Seekers in the neighbourhood. Ranking ones. We think they normally live and work your side of the space bridge, if that makes sense."

Prowl straightened. "That would certainly explain why _we_ haven't seen them, lately," he agreed, tightly. "What do they seem to be up to?"

"That's just it – we're not really sure. We've only been able to make a fairly positive identification of Thundercracker, but we're fairly sure Skywarp is in this district somewhere too. Starscream is, eh-… well, out of the picture at the moment. Point being," she spread her hands before having to elaborate on the latter point. "The Chief Inspector is worried that having these three here will mean Megatron isn't far behind. To be blunt, we don't have the capability in the ranks to repel that kind of force."

"Well, he's been reasonably active _here_. All pretty small scale things, but definitely active," Prowl tapped his fingers to his lips. "I wonder which is the genuine project, if there is one? If he's distracting us from what his underlings are doing, or vice versa? All right, we'll see what we can find out. We'll get back to you, if it looks serious."

0o0o0o0o0o0

It was easy enough to keep a weather eye on the space bridge. Unless he was planning on moving it – which he didn't do unless he was guaranteed the (potential) payoff would be worth the investment, because it was big, heavy and energy-intensive to set up – Megatron left the device parked out in the desert, off the beaten track, with a guard or two to keep an eye on it. Which meant the Autobots could _also_ keep an eye on it, parking one of their little spy satellites in orbit above it.

Sky-spy had dutifully kept a record of all and any goings-on at the transport device for the last few months. The first couple of terrestrial lunar cycles passed uneventfully – there was the occasional arrival or departure of one Decepticon or another, but nothing particularly big.

Things had begun to get more interesting over the past a month and a half or so, and expressions grew steadily more irritable/guilty as it became clear just how much more activity had sprung up around transport device. Not from the one solitary bored-looking guard – when he wasn't flaked out with his feet up behind the controls, he tromped boredly around and took potshots at the wildlife, but rarely actually did anything productive. Rather, there were fairly frequent shipments of energon, at random intervals to make them harder for the Autobots to plan to intercept, and each shipment was actually quite _large_, often in excess of a couple of hundred cubes.

Prowl gave a little engine grumble, as though clearing his throat. "So, um. Did… no-one think it important enough to inform me of this?" That wasn't a hesitant tone of voice, that was a _testing_ tone of voice. The sort of tone of voice that said _you all better have good excuses for this._

There were anxious, swapped glances from the clustering of smaller mechs who were only there because they'd not managed to sneak off earlier.

"I only saw one shipment," a guilty voice piped up in the background. "I… heard people talking about it. I thought it was a one-off."

"Same here," another voice agreed, over the murmurings of agreement. "It was random, not associated with any reported Decepticon activity, and I just… I… figured they'd just got lucky, for once. Found a clean source of energy that didn't require them attacking us or the natives, and they… slipped under the radar."

"That," Prowl glared at the culprits, who shrank back into the wall and tried to look like they were actually just part of the furniture, "was a _lot_ of energon. Not just some happy coincidences or Megatron 'getting lucky'. And they have done it all _right_ under our noses, and made us look incompetent." Another glower. "Moreso than normal."

Jazz leaned close and grinned, and added, in a low, conspiratorial tone of voice; "be interesting to know how they managed it without anyone noticing, though, right?"

Prowl made a noise that could have meant anything and went back watching the display.

It was some time during the night when things got interesting. No energon shipments, this time – just a solitary Decepticon. He glided down and transformed right at the edge of Sky-spy's range (just close enough for the Autobots to observe the painful wound on his left wing) and strode proudly over to the bridge controls, where the 'guard' was (as ever) flaked out with his feet up, ignorant of approaching doom.

"Well, there he is," someone in the background observed, not entirely necessarily, upon seeing Starscream arrive. "Still functioning, more's the pity. Wonder where he's been hiding, these past few weeks?"

"He can't have been up to anything wholesome, wherever he was," came the agreement.

"Given the subject of conversation, I think that would normally be taken as a given," Prowl commented, dryly, silencing the peanut gallery with a little glare.

The Air Commander was his usual impatient self – marched straight up to the recharging guard, planted a splayed hand on his faceplate, and shoved him unceremoniously straight off his perch and onto his aft in the dirt. There was a minute or two of silent confrontation – probably lots of yelling involved, but Sky-spy was just too far away to pick it up, thankfully – lots of arm waving and pointing, gestures of threat, and the guard even pointed his weapon in his commander's direction. Arms folded challengingly across a glittering canopy, and there was another moment or two of silent discussion, and then the guard lowered his arm – reluctantly – and Starscream got back to work. The Seeker was over to the space bridge and gone altogether in a few more astro-seconds.

There was a cycle or two of sulky stomping about from the guard, and more fried wildlife, which Teletraan-1 helpfully zipped through at high speed, and he'd just begun to settle again when the other two members of the Air Commander's trine arrived. Cue a few minutes more posturing and arm waving – what was wrong with the occasional polite request? – and the fliers followed their superior.

Then silence descended back onto the space bridge, and until the readout came back to "present", nothing at all else happened. The same guard was still there – there was a flicker of sympathy for just _how_ many orns he'd been stuck there, but he often had his feet up and his hands laced in his lap, apparently deep in recharge, so it clearly wasn't too big a deal to him – but there'd been nothing further. No deliveries, no superior officers, no-one returning, nothing.

"Someone remind me what the problem was?" Ironhide suggested, from the back of the little gathering by the monitors. "Megatron's lackeys haven't used the space bridge in orns, which means they've got nothing to send back, which means they're being quiet and behaving themselves for once."

"You don't think it's even a _tiny _bit suspicious that _no-one_ has used the space bridge for a while, after all that activity a month or so ago?" Prowl gave him a funny look. "And that _none_ of the winged terrors have come back yet? Because so far as we can tell from _this_, Starscream's trine is still on Cybertron, _apparently_ – strange thought it may seem – behaving themselves." He hesitated for effect. "Am I the only one who suspects they're up to something?"

"Not at all, Prowl," Optimus shook his head, tiredly. "It all smacks of someone creating a distraction, although your guess is as good as mine on _who_ and _what_."

"My money would be on those damn fliers," Ironhide put in, darkly. "They're sneaking about, keeping a low profile, not causing any complaints, and you know as well as I do that Quiet Seekers is a _Bad Thing_. They're up to something secretive."

"In which case, it'll be a good idea for some of us to go and check it out," Prowl added.

"Whoa, wait. You're suggesting we go sending half the battlegroup back to Cybertron to counter a threat that might be nothing? Might just be Megatron sneaking about in order to get us to do exactly that?" Ironhide had already folded his arms across his powerful chest. "Report back what we found out, let the police sort 'em out."

"And what if it _is_ a genuine threat? You'd entrust the success of the mission into the hands of officers inexperienced in dealing with the likes of Megatron's upper-ranks?" Prowl gave him a glare. "They'll get minced, and we've got officers to spare, here. I'm not suggesting we send half the force – just one or two of us going back home won't dent the efficacy of our forces on Earth, especially if Megatron is missing three of his own. If it _is_ a bigger problem than we'd anticipated, they'll have the expertise there to deal with it."

"And if it turns out to be nothing, you can say your 'told you so' with impunity," Trust Jazz to defuse the situation. "We'll be gone for an orn or two at most. No worries, right?"

0o0o0o0o0o0

The guard – if that was even what this bored youngling was – was particularly inefficient, and particularly useless as a guard. He lounged behind the control panel, rocking back on a stool, feet propped on the console, and didn't even look up from his reading at the sound of footsteps. "Mighty Megatron says no-one's to use the Space Bridge without his express permission," he intoned, disinterestedly, obviously expecting fellow Decepticons to have arrived. "So you can slag off back to where you came from and get a permission slip, like good little sparklings."

Prowl shoved the smaller mech's feet off the console, toppling him clean off his stool. "Didn't anyone ever teach you to keep your feet off the furniture?" he asked, dryly, powering up the panel and checking the co-ordinates.

The Decepticon was sufficiently shocked at being told off for his behaviour – by an _Autobot_, of all people – that for a full few astro-seconds he didn't even power up his weapons, just sat on his aft and _gawped_. He eventually rediscovered his vocaliser, and proclaimed, ineffectively; "Halt! This transport is for Decepticon use only! Stop, or I'll shoot!"

Jazz paused in the bridge entrance, and turned to look back at the angry youngling. "If you shoot us now, won't you hit the space bridge?" he wondered, lifting a hand for emphasis. "Megatron won't be too happy if you go shooting up his only way back to Cybertron, right?"

"I won't miss."

"You're a Decepticon. Sharpshooting isn't your forte. I bet you couldn't even hit the side of that cliff, from this distance!"

"Want to put money where your boasting is?" the groundling turned to prove the Autobot wrong… and realised he'd been tricked when the dull thunder of the space-bridge started up in the background. "Ah, _slag_..."

0o0o0o0o0o0

Not _another_ unannounced use of the space-bridge? This was getting, in as succinct a description as possible, to be tiresome. Shockwave restrained the urge to make a noise of displeasure.

Normally space bridge activity was well-regulated. A shipment would be announced, sent, monitored during transit, and arrive in a tidy geometric pile held together by energy binders, if Shockwave was lucky, or a slightly more slapdash pile if the Autobots had been nearby and interfering during the initial loading.

That _used_ to be the normal operation, of course. There were those who thought it the very pinnacle of entertainment to send an unannounced pile of unbound energon canisters through the space bridge, when bored, and to act innocent when the vidscreen display showed a disgruntled Shockwave lurching over the haphazard scattering of fallen containers that emerged at the Cybertron end. That was what Shockwave was anticipating arriving, right now; any moment now there'd be the innocent little chirp of "why, how did _that_ all get in there?" from the comms module, and a slithering clatter as the space bridge disgorged its contents. He braced himself for a cascade of whatever rubbish a certain pair of bored cassettes had decided to send him.

…the receive-point was empty- What? _Empty_? That could _not _be right. There must be a fault. He groaned inwardly. Fixing the space bridge was a job that took orns at the very best of times, and even after it was explained to him in explicit detail Megatron never understood the true complexities of the system, always wanted it done in half the time. Which usually led to a botched half-afted job, to get him to stop stamping his foot and threatening, and-

Two mechs shot out from where they'd been hiding behind the inside wall, and dodged past the startled Shockwave so quickly it was almost as if they'd been fired from a cannon. By the time the Decepticon recognised them as Autobots, they'd already skidded behind a pillar and out of his line of fire.

"Stop!" He fired a warning shot at the very margin of the pillar, strafing the laser closely enough to singe the sullen purplish alloy, hoping to startle them out.

They startled out, all right. In the wrong direction.

0o0o0o0o0o0

"I hope you have an equally ingenious plan to get us _back_, when the time comes," Prowl grumbled, as Jazz watched the sentinels depart, their quarry lost.

"Oh, we'll wing it. We usually do."


	10. Chapter 10

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Ten**

**Disclaimer:** Author neither claims nor (intentionally) implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any other character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators.

**A/N: **Primus alive, Keaalu wrote something with a bit of action in it. Maybe it's the insanity of being on-call. And having fridge alarms going off at freaking MIDNIGHT :froth: This is probably all typoes. My brain has officially melted, tonight.

But thank you, thank you, lovely reviewers. :) You are my sanity.

I claim no responsibility for the duffing-up of Seekers. :holds up hands: It wasn't me, it was the other woman. Har fault. :nods:

* * *

"One thing I'm still curious about is what you're going to do once we're finished here?"

"What?" Scarlet looked up from the palmtop computer he was working on while Spotweld measured a new length of fuel line. "How do you mean?"

"Well, you can't hide out in here for the rest of your days?"

"Why not?"

Spotweld opened and closed his mouth a few times, but no words came out except; "…what?"

"I wasn't being serious," Scarlet shook his head, amusedly, and went back to his computer. "To be honest, I hadn't really thought about it. I was a little preoccupied by my lack of functional memory."

"Ah, Forceps is working on that. I think she's trying to track down another Seeker to have a look at, see which bit connects to which bit?"

"Another Seeker?" Scarlet prompted, curiously, but Spotweld was either preoccupied or just deliberately not rising to the bait. "Like me?" he chased.

"Well, that was my assumption. Bit difficult to see how _your_ brain fits together if the exemplar doesn't look like you, wouldn't you say?"

"Oh, ha. Point taken." Scarlet's mood had picked up, though. If Seekers were as rare as Forceps had been implying, perhaps this one would know him! And if they did, perhaps they could help start to fill in some of the gaps in his memory – discounting the fact that his memory was just all one big gap, right now – even if they weren't any use to Forceps.

Replacing the damaged piping was fortunately painless, but unfortunately not _completely _devoid of sensation, and the Seeker proved to be unexpectedly ticklish. After Scarlet had given Spotweld a firm but involuntary kick to the faceplates, almost crushing his nose – for which the flier was _very_ apologetic, around his semi-embarrassed snickers – Forceps had resorted to all but sitting on the offending limb to keep it still.

It was in this huddled fashion that the ever-suspicious police grav-cycle found them, when she stopped off mid-shift to drop off the supplies Forceps had requested she fetch. The station had been abuzz with excitement at the arrival of two such high-ranking Autobots, earlier that orn, and Pulsar had dragged herself away from it before she had the chance to lose her nerve and completely spill the full story to them. She found herself beginning to wish she _had_ told them.

Scarlet had continued his hypothesising during the day. "Had you considered engaging a consultant virologist from the local hospital to help?"

Pulsar shrugged. "Considered and attempted. They didn't want to know."

"Why not? If what you told us earlier is anything to go by, it's their field of expertise, surely."

"Oh, I really can't think _why_. I'm sure it's nothing at all to do with the fact they seem to have bought the idea that the Decepticons are working the whole thing behind the scenes, and the idea of helping out a raggedy bunch of Autobot police officers is a little less than appealing." She made a face. "I can't imagine why they'd not be falling over each other to make themselves legitimate targets, like that."

"The Decepticons aren't involved, if you look at the evidence." Scarlet let the sarcasm just roll off him.

"Yeah, but you _would _say that because yours isn't exactly an _unbiased worldview_-"

"_Sparklings_…" Forceps warned, holding up her hands for quiet. "Lets not retread that old ground, hmm?"

Pulsar huffed. "We'd probably be making headway if we could get the landlord to talk," she admitted. "But nobody has managed to get anything out of him except for assertions of innocence."

"Well, maybe you just need a ghost to persuade him otherwise. Right?" Although the smile on Scarlet's face would have sent a chill through the landlord without the flier even having to consider playing ghost.

"What? What do you mean, a ghost?"

Silently at first, Scarlet touched his fingertips to the badly patched glass in his chest.

"Oh, hey, _hey_! Primus, no. I can't sneak you into force HQ-"

"Why not?" He gave her a probing look. "You want to know what the landlord is hiding, don't you?"

"Well, yes, but-… I can't be sneaking you into the station! _You'll_ be arrested, and _I'll _be for the high-jump for not telling Hardline. I've lost count of how many favours I've done for _Sepp_, I'm not adding _you_ to my list-"

"So you make sure we don't get caught. We move through holes in the sensor grid, when there's not a lot of mechs about to catch us. Sounds simple enough to me?"

"So not only have I got to get you _in, _I also have to work out all the logistics for your silly plan?"

"Well, I can hardly do it. I've never seen the place before, let alone memorised the location of all the major points on the security grid. Look." He made a long-suffering sound of resignation. "You and I both want to get information out of him. If he does know something, and I'm pretty sure he must do, he'll know who came after me – that's assuming he's innocent of outright _sending _them." Pause, different tactic. "Look, he thinks I'm dead. In fact, if he knows who attacked me, I bet he'll be _convinced_ I'm dead, even if you lot haven't used the threat of pinning my 'murder' on him as one of your tools of persuasion. So if I show up, all broken up and insubstantial looking, what else can he possibly think apart from that he's being haunted as divine retribution? You just have to get me in there, and I will work all the magic." He grinned, nastily. "I am going to scare the absolute ball-bearings out of him. You can be fairly well guaranteed he'll not just spill his lubricant, he'll not be able to tell you what he knows fast enough. All you have to do is get me in there, and _look innocent_."

"Oh, all right all right." She threw her hands up and made a beleaguered noise of annoyance. "I'll see what I can arrange. I'll have to rig some sort of blind-spot cascade…" Her grumbling faded off into the near distance, looking for where Spotweld had gone to find energon.

"Now all I need is Sepp's blessing to leave this place without falling to pieces," Scarlet commented, to no-one in particular, and sat up closer to the surgeon. "How long before I get the all clear?"

"All clear for what?" Forceps sounded distant, distracted. "Lay down."

"You weren't listening?" he leaned down closer, and perked a brow when she looked irritably up at him.

"Oh, I was listening. I was just assuming that you were hypothesising," she admitted, rigging the overhead scanner to do a systemwide sweep. "Given your reluctance to be arrested, I had guessed you wouldn't want to get within a mile of the biggest concentration of police officers in the district. Now _lay down_."

"Oh, psh. I'm dead, remember? They won't be looking for me." He gazed patiently up into the lens while it worked.

"You hope."

"Trust me, a poor murdered Decepticon will be that _last_ person they'll be on the lookout for."

Forceps _tch_-ed and watched the scan progress to green lights across the board, tweaked the settings and set it to go again. "I can't say it sounds like one of the more sensible ideas you've had while you've been in our company," she said, grimly, watching as the new display came up with a few wonky ambers. "But equally, I'm not about to dissuade you from it. Sometimes it's only the more maverick ideas that get results." She nodded, satisfied. "All right. Most of the remaining damage here is cosmetic," she explained, at last, after three full-system scans proved him functional, and allowed herself a smile. "You know, it's probably best we leave the remaining repairs until after you've had your fun, anyway. I can't imagine ghosts look too aesthetically appealing."

"Am I reading too much into it, or did you just give me your blessing to go?" he wondered, innocently.

"After a fashion, yes. It won't bring your memory back, but it'll be helpful to you, might help ease a little of your need to know what happened while we wait to get your brain sorted. And, more importantly, it shouldn't be strenuous, and it'll get you out from under my feet." She gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder. "Still. Spotweld will go with you, just in case."

"You don't trust me?" He exaggerated a deeply-wounded expression.

"I don't trust you not to over-exert yourself," Forceps corrected. "In the unlikely event that you _do_ send yourself into another seizure, I'd rather there was someone medically competent with you to snatch your aft out of the fire before the police find you. My friend," she pointed in the vague direction Pulsar had flounced, "will be about as much good as a spark in a trance."

Scarlet snerked amusedly. "For once we agree on something, surgeon."

0o0o0o0o0o0

"Have we figured out where in all this the Seekers come in?"

After arriving and getting a cycle or two to refuel, and reset overtaxed relays, the two Earth-based Autobots had joined Hardline's team in his office to review the known facts and make hypotheses.

The Chief Inspector smiled, grimly. "In a word, no," he admitted. "To be perfectly honest with you, we _had_ been hoping you might be able to give us some pointers, if you knew what Megatron had been up to lately."

"On the basis of that… I hate to suggest this, but I think there's the strong possibility they're just acting rogue," Prowl mused, and out of the corner of his eye saw Jazz nodding his agreement. "There's been zero indication whatsoever that Megatron has any interest in what's going on here on Cybertron. He's too busy with his own plots, back on Earth – he's attacked a fuel depot, an oil refinery, we know he's got an interest in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN…"

"It's hard keeping him _away_ from that one," Jazz added. "Jury's still out on whether it's the thing's potential as a new energy source or its potential to destroy the Earth that's got him so interested."

"You think he'd be watching more closely, then?" Hardline glanced up from his collated reports; certainly didn't _look_ like there'd been any monitoring going on.

"Oh, definitely, and he's not made any indication he's monitoring activity on Cybertron at all. I don't think Starscream's threesome are here because Megatron has told them to come and act out some dastardly plan for planetary domination. If he had, he'd have been keeping a closer eye on what they were up to, because he trusts Starscream about as far as he can kick him." Jazz hesitated, and frowned. "Actually, he can kick him a pretty long way, when the mood takes him, so you should probably ignore the analogy. Point I'm trying to make is that someone like Soundwave would be here to report back if the Screaming one or his wing-mates got out of line. And you've not seen him, right?"

Hardline shook his head. "Only those three, and mostly indirectly. One or two of the junior officers have made positive IDs, but no-one's got close enough to make an arrest. Those jets are… well, fast," he allowed, ungraciously. "Too fast for us. It's like trying to catch solar wind."

"There's something else you ought to know before you start thinking too in-depth about this," Nightsun interrupted, quietly.

"What's that?"

"Starscream isn't involved any more."

"I heard he was out of the picture," Prowl agreed, nodding. "Do we know for sure he's incapacitated?"

"He's more than incapacitated. He's, um… he's dead."

There was a deafening silence for several long moments.

"Dead? Do we have confirmation of this?" Prowl asked. "It wouldn't be the first time he's gone missing. Last time everyone thought Megatron had finally done away with him, only to have him show up an orn or two later looking a little dented but otherwise pretty operational."

"A little _too_ operational," Jazz added, rubbing at a remembered ache in his upper arm.

"Well, it's pretty conclusive. We have video footage of his murder." Nightsun beckoned them over, set the file running. "Admittedly we never found the body, but our analysts have confirmed that he'd have died unless he got urgent medical attention within a cycle or two of it happening."

"You've checked all the hospitals?" Prowl asked, watching with a morbid fascination as the three shadows tore into the flier. Jazz was watching silently, features pinched in a similar look of distaste. "He could have crawled off and got help – Primus knows he's a tenacious little slagger."

"Hospitals, minor doctors surgeries, hostels, mortuaries, everywhere," Nightsun confirmed. "We figured he must have been picked up by Empties. Used for spare parts, what was left of him."

"What of the idea the other two found him?"

"Ehh, it's a strong possibility," Hardline nodded, pursing his lips in reluctant agreement. "What's their surgical knowhow? Anyone think they could have fixed him up?"

"From what we've seen, not much." Jazz pulled a face and mused, bleakly; "And I can't imagine either Thundercracker or Screamer trusting Skywarp with a scalpel, that's for sure. No-one said they had to do it themselves, though. Any medics been reported abducted lately?"

There was a ripple of uneasy amusement.

"None that we know of, but we'll recheck," Hardline confirmed, grimly.

0o0o0o0o0o0

Now they had a smidgen of evidence that the _Flywheel_ still had an active trade in Blue, Skywarp and Thundercracker had set up a temporary camp on the roof of an abandoned block of apartments nearby and were keeping a close eye on it. They'd been doing their monitoring in shifts, teleporting in to avoid overt detection by flying – Skywarp would do his shift, teleport back to the agreed meeting place to pick up his wing-mate, teleport both back to the observation post, then teleport himself back to their home base for a cycle or two of recharge. Once done with getting his energy back up, whoever wasn't on _Flywheel_ monitor duty took up the search for their missing wing-mate, although _that _search had pretty much run its course. It was painful to think they'd done all they could, and that their commander _was _in fact probably dead and packed in pieces into a crate in some psychopath's basement, somewhere.

Skywarp was flat on the roof of the building, arms folded under his chin, trying to stave off letting himself offline. He was bored, and his energy levels were low enough for amber alerts to be sounding in the back of his cortex. It was so tempting to just slip back into recharge – no-one would ever know! – but sleeping on the job wouldn't help _catch _the slagger, and he was determined that only he or Thundercracker (certainly no stupid sentimental Autobot police officers) would have the dubious but delicious honour of removing the head from between the fragger's shoulders.

Speaking of the local 'law enforcement' (because they were sooo effective at it), he'd seen three police vehicles pass by his little outpost already, but their patrols were so regular – exactly ten breems between each one – that _any_ idiot would notice them. It was one of the very first things that the two Decepticons noticed, orns ago, and the Auto-morons hadn't thought to change the routine… even… once…

…_Someone else_ had noted the regularity of the police patrols. Creeping along the street, hugging the wall, was a blot of motile shadow, punctured with two dots of pale light high above the ground.

Skywarp was instantly fully awake, systems buzzing excitedly. Resting was put onto a backburner. He felt his pumps suddenly all _kicking_, all at once, automatic switches clicking over, fresh energon flushing out stagnant vapours. Fuel was rerouted away from non-critical and non-essential areas to power his engines, his weapons. Before the night was out, he _knew_ he would be seeing some action, and he was tingling in anticipation. He just wished he wasn't so darn _tired_.

"Thundercracker-!" He opened the silent internal comm.-channel. It was taking every last erg of self-restraint not to fling himself off the top of the building and straight into the attack, to lose himself in the insults and brawling. "Come in, TC. Sleeper's here!" No answer. "Come on, Thundercracker, _answer me_."

Thundercracker sounded like he'd been rudely awoken out of recharge, when he finally answered, full astro-seconds later, because his voice was muzzy, indistinct. "_What, what? Say again, Warp?_"

Skywarp watched as the shadow slipped into the mouth of the alleyway running down the side of the _Flywheel_, blending in with the shadowy refuse bins so well he all but disappeared altogether, save for the two bright spots of his optics, which glowed out like an advertisement to the figures that were starting to gather. It reminded him a little of the deep-sea fish they occasionally glimpsed from Nemesis' windows, back on Earth – the ones with the bioluminescent lures to attract the smaller fish they preyed upon within range of their jaws. He wondered absently about how often the predator succeeded in attracting in a _bigger fish_, like this idiot was doing right now.

"He's _here_. The one we're looking for. The ringleader," he hissed, smiling.

"_How can you be so sure? You better not have approached him!_" There was the indistinct sound of hurrying feet, and then the hum of engines in the background. "_We agreed we'd wait for each other to get there as backup!_"

"Don't get your afterburners in a pinch, TC. I've not approached him." Skywarp grinned, wickedly. "But you should see the _size_ of the slagger-! It's _got_ to be him." He gazed down into the street from his high vantage point, watching as the shapes milled about in the mouth of the alleyway. "Big mech, sensor baffle. Got to be the one! Can't be anyone else!"

"_When you say __big__…_?"

"Taller than me," Skywarp confirmed, watching as tiny parcels of dark blue light got distributed among the thronging shapes. " 'Squarer', too, looks like. Heavier. Still! Ground-pounder. We can take him!" He was jittering excitedly; he'd already drawn his feet up into a crouch underneath him, could feet the heat rising as his turbines began very softly to cycle. "I'll shoot him, you question him. Just hurry the Pit up and get here before he gets away!"

"_Are you sure you have the hang of this interrogation business, Warp? How am I going to ask him questions if you've offlined him?_"

"Oh, psh, I'm not going to shoot to kill. Going to wait until he's drawn his weapon, then disarm him. Easy. I just need you here to distract him!"

"_I don't like the sound of 'distract' him. You mean 'pick a fight with him', don't you?_"

"You always want to argue over semantics at the worst possible moment."

"…_?!_" Thundercracker seemed capable of making only wordless exclamations in response to that.

By now, the shadow had moved back _out_ of the alleyway. He was leaving. Their one lead, and they were going to lose him. _Again_!

"Frag it, TC, I can't be waiting all evening for you." Skywarp revved his engines to warn Thundercracker of what he was about to do.

"_Don't you __dare__ try take him on alone, Warp-_!" In the background, the pitch of Thundercracker's engines increased as he put on a burst of speed.

"So hurry up, already!" Skywarp cut the channel without waiting to hear Thundercracker's argument. He stepped gracefully out over the drop and let his thrusters catch him.

How the big mech had failed to hear him descend, Skywarp had no idea. Perhaps he _had_ heard him. Perhaps he'd just ignored him. Perhaps – most likely – he had his own game that he was playing. A game of wits and nerve, of trickery and deceit like any good Decepticon.

"Hey. Sleeper," Skywarp said, loudly, and the giant shadow paused. "We want a word with you."

"Lemme guess," the giant rumbled, amusedly, not yet turning to face him. "You're one of the delightful little sparklings who had to beat up a respected journalist just to get our attention. What can I do for you, little one? Lost your way?"

Skywarp felt his lips twitch at the condescending tone of voice, and struggled not to rise to the bait. At some subliminal level, he recognised the owner of the voice was trying to taunt him into premature action, to get him running hot and uncontrolled and make him easier to put down. "Actually, I've been waiting for you. Took your time to show up. Something got you worried?"

There was a grim snort of laughter, like distant thunder, and the shadowy figure drifted closer. "Have to give you credit where due, I guess. You're a brave little squirt," he rumbled. "Coming here to face me, after me and my allies fragged up your little friend."

"Brave? Oh, I don't know about that," Skywarp argued, trying to control the way his pumps were whining and straining for action inside him, the way all his actuators had coiled in preparation for the lunge. "Being brave requires there's something for me to be scared of and eh, y'know, there's not much about that's worth my effort." He glanced around himself, for effect. "Just derelict old buildings, a few Empties, and a wannabe conqueror who doesn't even dare take off his sensor baffle."

"So, the Decepticons play with psychology too, now, do they?" The giant paused his distracting stride, and raised a shadowy hand to the top of the equally-shadowy opposite shoulder. "You want to look your doom in the optic, fair enough. Be my guest." There was an electronic chirp, and the baffle deactivated.

It was like he'd stepped out through a shimmering heat-haze, the mist flying away from him and revealing the olive-green monster in all his caterpillar-tracked glory. He must have seen some tiny flinch from Skywarp because he smiled nastily, as if the battle was already won.

The Empty had been right. This _was_ a big mech – easily a head taller than the flier, and close to twice the mass. He was a machine designed for heavy mine-work, all massive digging claws and caterpillar drives and power-converters that probably took even more energon than Skywarp needed to get airborne. This _was_ a mech who could probably "squish him" without even chipping his paintwork.

…if the Decepticon stood still, of course. The purple Seeker was a flier, one of the aerial elite, and he could be skyborne and raining destruction down on his head from a safe distance… if he had the strength to do it. Two flashing alerts had clicked over to red. He was busily scrounging up ergs of energy from all the systems he could safely deactivate and remain awake and functioning and still (at least slightly) dangerous.

"So what do you want, little one?" The Sleeper halted a stride or two from where Skywarp stood trying not to fidget agitatedly. "Just wanted to see the one responsible for your brother's demise, or is there something more?"

Skywarp didn't bother to argue the 'we're not brothers', for once. "I came here to warn you that we're onto you. And once my friend gets here, we're going to be asking you a few questions, so you might want to save yourself the pain and tell us who you're working for _now_."

"So, you _are_ alone? Useful to know," the giant mused.

Skywarp could have kicked himself. _How long have you been a Decepticon? And you __still__ gab out all the things you should know __not__ to gab out?_ "So far as you know," he attempted to salvage his mistake. "Come on. Save yourself all the pain in the long run. Who are you working for?"

The Sleeper cast his gaze briefly skywards. "I can't see any of your little friends hanging around up there. Remind me, what was my motivation? The empty threats from one scrawny little lost airhead who I could _pop_ without hardly moving my arm aren't quite enough to get me to spill everything I know." Massive arms crossed with a meaningful whine of powerful motors over a square chest. "Want to try again, or do you just want to skip to the part where I pound you into the dust?"

"I don't think you understand. You won't get anywhere with trying to _bribe_ or _threaten_ me." Skywarp echoed the arms-crossed gesture, and lifted his chin. "I'm not going to give you another chance. If you refuse to tell me what I want to know, you will become an _official _enemy of the Decepticons. We will hunt you all down, and destroy every last one of you."

"Psh. You'll have to excuse me while I fail to lubricate myself in horror," the giant scoffed, lips pulled up in a derisory sneer. "You don't know who we are, and you're outnumbered, if you recall," he waggled a finger to underline the point. "Primus, if you bunch of air-headed Seekers are your faction's hope for the future, then maybe you better abdicate now. Small wonder you're masters of a fading regime if the ruling class ain't even got enough chips to rub together to make up one functional processor."

"You want to come a bit closer and repeat that, fatty?" _You are __so__ going down. _

"Now now, be a good spark and stand still," the Sleeper smirked and balled his fingers into a fist. "If you're as well behaved as your little pal was, maybe I'll promise not to make it hurt too bad."

Skywarp saw red. "See how you handle a Seeker with all his faculties intact!" he howled, boosting himself vertically and flashing the blue-white heat from his thrusters in his assailant's face, feeling a vicarious thrill at the _roar_ of agony that surged up out of the massive creature below. "Not so easy to pick on someone you haven't drugged up beforehand, huh-?!"

The dark flier was a splash of quicksilver, hard to counter and impossible to catch – deadly purple laser beams strafed down like fire from the Pit itself, scorching lines and burns into the giant's armour. It was only a matter of time before a beam caught a critical junction, bored like a lance of white-hot molten metal into a vital processor and crippled him-

Skywarp was actually _winning_, doling out a merciless pummelling, until the Sleeper's backup arrived. The first he knew about the new arrivals was when a heavy piece of discarded litter whacked him smartly on the back of the helm, fizzing a brief shower of static through his vision. "What the-"

Something used his momentary disorientation to grab hold of his legs. Something _heavy_. Was that a mech? How in Pit had it jumped high enough to grab him?! It yanked him off-balance at just the right angle, then fell hastily away from the blue heat as he flashed power to his thrusters, alarmed.

The wall was just a little too close, and Skywarp found he didn't have the room to straighten up in time. Clipped a trailing wing and promptly lost both altitude and control. "Oof!" The collision with the sheer face of the building jangled a fresh set of hurts through strained motors, and he found the ground racing towards him. Gunning his thrusters took the edge off the impact but didn't save him from an undignified sprawl on his aft.

The middle-sized one had a high-pitched cackle that went through him like knives.

An indignant rage flashed through Skywarp. How dare they laugh! How _dare_ they laugh at him! The middle one took a point-blank (sadly underpowered) shot to the faceplates before even realising the Decepticon was back on his feet, and staggered into the smallest one, yelping pathetically. No time to savour his success, though, Skywarp had to counter the big one – moved with the intended blows and twisted into a counter-attack.

"Stand still, you little fragger," the Sleeper snarled, exasperatedly.

"Stand still? I thought you were the best! You were going to be so kind and gentle, and you can't even _catch _me!" Skywarp jeered. So much for big and powerful – size obviously wasn't everything if you were big and _stupid_-

The giant glared down at him and landed a lucky punch on one wing when Skywarp failed to lurch out of the way fast enough. "We're going easy on you, flier. We'd rather have you on our books as a loyal consumer than have you _dead_."

"If this is trying your hardest," Skywarp threw himself out of the way of a descending piece of discarded masonry, "then you clearly haven't had an effective enemy in _vorns_."

The middle-sized thug had clearly recovered enough to rejoin the fight; he came out of nowhere to deliver a splintering blow from the scaffold to the back of Skywarp's unsuspecting knees. "You implying we're lazy, Decepticreep?" he asked, over the flier's startled howl of pain. "At least we're not tottering about like hungry sparklings. When was the last time you refuelled?" He snagged a purple arm and dragged Skywarp halfway back to his feet. "How about we help you out?"

The smaller one took the Seeker's other arm. "Yeah, we got energon to spare!" he jeered, his voice echoing unpleasantly down his pipes.

"_Tainted_ energon," Skywarp corrected, trying to work out how to worm his way free. The pair of them were obviously in good health, unlike his own raggedy energy levels.

The giant was tossing a cube of blue light easily in one hand. "We'll let you sample the merchandise, then we'll talk semantics," he smirked. "You never know. You might like it."

"I am _not_ going to sit back and just _let you _get me addled on that Pit-brewed slag-" Skywarp argued, struggling; two hands had come down on his helm, and were holding him firmly as the giant approached. _Got to get out of this __now__. _He flung his weight frantically sideways, off-balancing the middle one just long enough to whisk his arm free and twist viciously at the smallest one's head – there was a hideous crack of some inner component or another and he promptly let go as well. Not about to sit and savour his success, Skywarp turned on his heels and bolted.

"Can't I trust either of you to do anything right?" the giant bellowed, snatching for Skywarp as he passed like a bolt of hot mercury. His blow clipped the very tip of a wing and staggered the black mech into a dustbin.

…at last, in the middle distance, Skywarp could hear the soft roar of power. "TC, A HAND WOULD BE NICE!" he wailed at the sky, feeling himself flagging. Many more breems, and he'd be down for good.

The three thugs were already turning to look in the direction of the sound, their intended prey forgotten for a split second. Skywarp recognised what would be coming next an even _smaller_ fraction of a second too late to do anything about protecting himself from it – he knew the lulling pitch of the engines as well as he knew his own, and knew by the ultrasonic whine that underlaid them that there was going to be a sudden burst of speed and-

The air _exploded_ in a shockwave of localised sound that shattered every window in the neighbourhood. Even Skywarp howled and clapped his hands over his auditory sensors, feeling the low aching shock of burnout, thin little streamers of coolant hissing from ruptured lines beneath his cranial vents. _Dammit, TC, coulda warned me._

The three thugs were in disarray, shocked by the unexpected cacophony. The two smaller ones were already making a break for it – fast as they could on unsteady legs in the opposite direction, trailing droplets of energon and coolant vapour.

Skywarp wasn't about to pass up this chance. He pulled back and _slugged_ the biggest one in the face, felt the satisfying _crunch_ of plating beneath his balled fist and felt rather than heard the deep vibrating _boom_ of pain that sounded from the giant's vocaliser. The return swing was easy to dodge – it sailed past one shoulder vent as if in slow motion, and gave Skywarp ample opportunity to seize the wrist and use the momentum to carry the giant face-first into the wall, doling out more punishment to the wounded nose. "…_gonna slagging KILL YOU_!" he howled, hearing his own voice as if at a distance. "_Don't give a flying frag about the information, you're so going to __die_!!"

Thundercracker grabbed his arm and pulled him away. "…_no time_!" he sensed rather than heard Thundercracker yelling at him. "_we have to get out of here, skywarp…_!" It felt like watching the scene from behind several panes of bullet-proof glass; sounds were indistinct and echoey. "_…police are on their way. we have to be out of here…!_"

"Come on, TC, one last push and we can smash them-!" he argued, even his own voice sounding like he'd packed his vocaliser with damping-gel.

"_…police, skywarp. police!…_"

"But they're not due for another four breems-"

The distant _whoo-oop! _of sirens interrupted him, and approaching blue lights splashed the walls with an electric heartbeat.

"…_dammit, skywarp, we have to go __now__!_"

Skywarp looked back at where he'd left his prey groaning by the wall, and found the shadowy mech had already engaged his baffle, slunk into the puddles of darkness, and vanished. "Frag it, TC. I had him. I so _had_ him!"

Ginger-coloured police laser-fire finally convinced Skywarp he didn't want to hang around any longer than absolutely necessary. It strafed past so closely that it singed a shoulder vent, and he was airborne and following Thundercracker in less time than it took the Police officers to recognise him.

"Primus-damned Auto-butts!" Skywarp groused, over their private channel, once they finally pulled out of range and could concentrate on things other than avoiding getting shot. "Why'd they have to choose _now_ to show up? They've not gone outside their patrol times in _orns_! We could have had him. We _did_ have him!" He paused, grumbled wordlessly for a moment. "Maybe if we go back, we'll be able to find him. He's gotta be just as deaf as me, won't want to go too far until he recalibrates. We can find him. Come on, TC."

"_Don't know about you, Warp, but __I__ need to get some rest_," Thundercracker observed, grimly. "_Before I fall out of the sky_."

"I'm not _that_ tired. I could still beat him in a fight," Skywarp asserted, but didn't move to change his trajectory. He rode Thundercracker's vapour trail the whole way back to base, and collapsed in a sorry-looking Skywarp-coloured heap on the floor once they were safely inside and behind a closed door. "Unh."

"But you're not tired at all, right?" Thundercracker offered up a small smile.

"Maybe a little," Skywarp accepted, groggily, from the floor, absently rubbing at his poor abused audio receptors. "But I kicked his aft _good_."

"Kicked his aft, and found out absolutely slag-all?"

"Found out he's not too big to get his aft kicked."

"Oh shut up, and go to sleep."


	11. Chapter 11

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Eleven**

**Disclaimer:** As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. (...Except where they're obviously OCs, which Hasbro would be silly to want to claim.)

**A/N:** sorry for the delay getting this uploaded – got a bit of the lovely writer's block, and in the gap that left in my head my last year's NaNoWriMo story leaped in saying "me me finish meeee!" so I had to indulge it a little – have to try and get it finished before September, so I can prep for this years'. Then I arted a little, and my timetable went completely to pot. Bah.

Anyway, onward.

* * *

"…and they escaped?"

The three junior police vehicles exchanged looks and tried to avoid Hardline's gaze.

"Yes, Chief Inspector," the patrol sergeant spoke up. The sharp little grav-glider had almost, _almost_ brought down the blue Seeker, and was feeling particularly irked by his failure. "We, um… weren't expecting them to be quite to fast at takeoff."

"They were gone as soon as they saw us," one of the constables added, grimly.

"I'm assuming you didn't see fit to disguise your approach," Hardline observed.

Another awkward pause.

"I'm not sure any of us realised who was there until we were almost on top of them." the glider admitted. "We'd just heard a report of a disturbance, and were on our way to break it up. No-one realised who we'd find until we got there, by which time they were getting ready to make a run for it."

Hardline glanced up at Prowl, who stood at the rear of the room, listening in, arms folded thoughtfully. "Are street brawls the standard operating procedure of senior Decepticons?"

"Not on Earth, they weren't. And not even before we left Cybertron, unless they were after something," Prowl shook his head. "Sounds even more irregular if it's _Seekers _on the ground. An aerial assault is their way of doing things, almost without deviation."

"Any chance you could have misidentified?" Hardline turned his attention back on his junior officers.

"No, sir. We didn't get a long look, but we got enough," the smallest officer confirmed. "Lighting was poor, but we were all able to make good positive identifications – definitely the remaining two from Starscream's trine. It was a pretty, ah… _vocal _argument, too – we heard Skywarp's name mentioned a couple of times."

Hardline examined his interlaced fingers. "So it was just arguing? Could it not have just been over appropriate entitlement to whatever proceeds are being made from the sales of the narcotics?"

"We-ell, possibly, but when we say 'argue' we don't mean a friendly sort-of argument between co-conspirators," the sergeant corrected, politely. "It was an _I'm-going-to-make-molten-slag-out-of-you-now_ sort of argument. The black one looked like he was on the point of outright killing his opponent when we got there, probably would have if not for the fact his friend dragged him away before we could make the arrest."

Jazz smiled, wryly. "If I didn't know better, I'd have said it sounded like they were out to avenge old Screamer's murder," he observed.

The laughter that responded was… politely uneasy. Decepticons were famously weakened by the way all their dealings with each other consisted of "every 'Con for himself, and slag the rest of you," and the idea of any Decepticons (especially _those _three) being anything other than _ruthlessly _self-serving was deserving of a little laugh… provided nobody had to go so far as to stake his reputation on this abnormal pair being particularly true-to-form.

"They didn't look like they were in the best shape," the sergeant pointed out, quietly. "Scruffy, dirty, tired-looking mechs. Might have been why they were on the ground, not raining laser fire down from the air. If we didn't already know who they were, I'd have taken them for down-on-their-luck Neutrals, or even a couple of Empties. _Certainly_ not former members of Megatron's elite."

"All right, gents," Hardline sighed, at last, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You did all you could, and I thank you. We'll just… add this to our list of strange behaviours, and hope we can make an arrest before any of us get caught in the crossfire. Consider yourselves dismissed, for now."

"Jazz… what you said earlier…?" Prowl said, softly, hoping not to be overheard as they followed the junior officers out into the corridor.

"What, the whole vengeance thing? What about it?" Jazz kept his voice equally low.

"What if it _wasn't_ that far off the mark?"

"Things could get more painful on Earth, that's for sure!" Jazz made a face. "What you building up to?"

"They came here for a reason, remember? Starscream first, alone, then Skywarp and Thundercracker. If they're not here for Megatron, maybe they're only here because they followed Screamer. Wouldn't be the first time _he's_ made a run for it after a spat with his leader. The more I think about all this, the more confident I am in the idea they're acting rogue." Prowl nodded, as if in agreement with his own argument. "They came here with no instruction from Megatron. Equally, they're not – so far as we can tell – acting on the say-so of anyone connected to the Blue. That leaves the idea that they're acting on their own initiative – just… to what end, I have no idea."

"Which all means they could turn in either direction," Jazz agreed, thoughtfully. "Blue could be powerful enough to want to ally themselves to, regardless of what happened to Starscream, but equally it could have left them narked enough to want nothing more than to crush the operation, and we could use Screamer's demise to pull them _this_ way."

"Hey, wait a moment. You're not seriously suggesting we try and get those two to ally with _us_."

"Well, why not? Remember that human saying – keep your friends close, but your enemies closer?"

"I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb to suggest they probably didn't have two completely loose cannons – in every sense of the idea – in mind when they said it."

Jazz cracked a grin. "Probably not," he agreed. "But seriously. If we can convince 'em to run with us it might be enough to keep them from allying with the Blue loyalists. Primus knows _that_'d get pretty sticky."

"Hum." Prowl didn't look convinced. "And how exactly do you plan on negating all those thousands of vorns of adversity and convincing our mortal enemies to work _with_ us?"

Jazz wrinkled his nose. "I hadn't thought _that _far in advance, but eh, I guess Thundercracker is moderate enough that I bet we could prod him in just the right way to win his confidence – for a little while, if nothing else, which might be all we need," he hypothesised. "Who knows, maybe he's as tired of the war as we all are."

"And Skywarp? Megatron's most loyal? Happy to give his all in a firefight?"

"Ah, well, never been the brightest of sparks, has he? He's probably just betting on the leader, as they say. If we can get Thundercracker on board, maybe he'll be able to convince Skywarp. Right?"

"…Why is it that I just had a sudden vision of this all going to the Pit in a handcart?"

0o0o0o0o0o0

Even if they weren't letting him _fly_, yet, Scarlet considered it nice to just get _out_. The almost-empty streets had a somewhat eerie quality to them – just perfect for a ghost.

Spotweld had an oddly birdlike stride that made him come across as a lot _smaller_ than he actually was. Long practice meant he was pretty good at avoiding drawing overt attention to himself, in spite of his giant size and lurid orange colouration, but he _was _finding it tricky not to vastly outpace them. Truncating his long stride had made him look strangely hesitant, almost jumpy.

Scarlet too was looking edgy, but it looked solely down to the fact he was forced to _walk_. Forceps had deemed him probably fit enough to try out his thrusters again, but only _after_ they'd tried out this silly plan and once he was back safely under her watchful optic, just in case things went to slag and he _didn't_ actually remember as much about his own aerial prowess as he _thought _he did. Being told he was _capable _of flight again but not actually _allowed _to satisfy his most burning of desires had made him particularly jittery. _Highly cruel and unusual, _he'd decided.

He almost didn't realise they'd arrived, when they finally slowed and moved off the main street. From the back, the police station looked vastly more decrepit than it did from the front. It probably _was_ the best maintained of all the buildings in the neighbourhood, but that was hardly that much of a compliment. The tired, begrimed fascias were scuffed and over-patched, in dire need of a full refurbishment.

The entrance they were heading for looked more like a fire exit, an unintentionally-hidden set of double doors behind a loading dock. The cell block was directly behind, so Scarlet would have a shorter distance to sneak, running far less risk of discovery.

Pulsar called a temporary halt just before they went in. "Look, I've rigged the sensors as best I could for you to get in. It's not a great job, so you have to stick _precisely_ to these locations, or you'll show up on the security net," she instructed, downloading the locations to him. "The bars on the landlord's cell are false, as well, for now – harmless holographs, although he doesn't know that. You'll be able to get in, easy, but it'll look like you passed through a matrix forcefield like it wasn't there."

Scarlet nodded, thoughtfully. "Good, good. The more tricks we can use to make me look as spectral as possible, the better," he observed, trying out the minor tweaks to his vocaliser that lent a hollow, ringing tone to his sharp voice. The grey-and-white basecoat Spotweld had applied prior to the proper re-enamel gave him a ghostly look, and the pale blue optics made him glow almost ethereally. The crush wound at his hip was mostly just the 'cosmetic damage' Forceps had mentioned – it just _looked_ ugly and painful. A corpse returned from the dead.

To complete the ensemble, he thought he could do with something additional. Just something small. Something not-quite-normal. What could-… ah, yes. There were still one or two damaged coolant lines in there somewhere… like _there_. Perfect. It was close to one shoulder, towards his back, clamped off from either end at the moment. He unclamped the end from the inside, felt the volatile refrigerant first flush down the tubing and then evaporate out through the little fractures, beginning to swirl icily through his exoskeleton. It felt like a dozen tiny fingers strumming along his wiring, and he had to work hard to restrain a shudder, but the vapours were having exactly the right effect. It rapidly cooled his exoskeleton, and a hoarfrost of water vapour began to crystallise at plate margins.

"Don't forget the building _won't_ be empty," Pulsar added, grimly. "The security grid won't ping anyone that you're there, and there shouldn't be any more patrols for a few breems, but if you go too heavy on the ghostly wailing and moaning someone'll probably come looking for what all the noise is about."

Shrouded in fog, frost glittering on his armour, pale eyes glowing coolly, he truly _looked_ the part.

"Wish me luck," he murmured, and vanished inside.

0o0o0o0o0o0

The _Flywheel_'s landlord sat and moped quietly in his cell. He'd tried to give the police a convincing story, but he knew they didn't believe a word of it. They'd abandoned him here in this cell, alone, for orns, while they fiddled about and fixed him up with fake evidence. The slaggers. His establishment would be in ruins, by the time he ever got back to it – _if_ he ever got back. It had taken him _vorns_ to build up his patronage, and mere _breems _for it all to be destroyed.

It wasn't fair. He'd been _blackmailed_ into all of this! He'd been blackmailed into selling the product in the first place, he'd been blackmailed into _continuing_ to sell it, and he'd been caught out by planted evidence! Hindsight was such a wonderful thing. He wished he'd never accepted the Sleeper's "offer" (ha, some offer!) and could just go back to ripping the public off with reclaimed "exotic" fuels. Wasn't as if what he was doing was _illegal_, he was mostly just slapping a fancy name on a fancy coloured sample of reclaimed re-filtered alien fuel. Not _his_ fault his customers didn't think to ask him about the respective merits (or lack thereof) of his products.

There were muffled footsteps in the corridor outside, footsteps which halted level with the bars of his cell. He didn't look up; it'd only be his keeper, come to stare at him like some sort of animal in an alien zoological exhibit, and push a mug of low-grade energon through to him – supper, or something-

He froze. He'd already _had_ his evening ration. Which meant this was either an unscheduled police visit, for an interrogation based on new evidence they may have – oh how he hoped it was just the police – or it was-… it was… oh _Primus_…

Just outside the bars there was a silent figure, ghostly and bluish in the low lighting. At first, he hoped the flier was just a police minion, but the sleek body was too battered, too dented. There were striking and blackened damaged patches, all over the broken chassis. The golden cockpit glass was fractured, fogged with fluids, great chunks missing altogether. The bright colours he remembered were absent, just whites and dull greys. The blue optics stared through him, unfocused. Even the expected hum of coolant fans and internal pumps was missing. And a creeping mist of chilly fog had already begun to roll across the floor of the cell…

It didn't take much effort to realise that this was no _mortal_ visitor. This was a restless spark, held here in limbo – not quite pure enough to rejoin the Matrix, but not quite terrible enough to descend to the Pit. Perhaps trapped here, its mortal business unfinished, latching onto its one clear connection to the murky fate that had befallen it-

The landlord staggered to his feet, and promptly tripped backwards into the wall. "Oh, Primus forgive me-!" he yelped, startled. "You-!"

"Greetings, landlord," the apparition said, in a sweet, sibilant whisper.

"What-what do you wa-want?" he crawled sideways along the wall, trying to get away but not entirely sure where he thought he was going to _go_. If he could somehow jam himself clean through the solid wall, that'd be _perfect_.

"Answers, landlord." The pale figure stepped up to the bars, and passed through them _without even a ripple_. "Answers. So I may finally obtain closure." A long, sad sigh rolled from the silent cooling fans. "So I might at last rest my weary spark."

The chilly fog had rolled across the floor to the landlord's trembling feet. He squeaked and tried to retreat from it. "I don't know, I don't know-!" he whimpered, breathlessly, watching as the mist lapped around him, trying vainly to pick up his feet in such a way that his non-hovering body could hover above it. "Whatever you want to ask, I don't know anything-!"

"Why did you kill me?" the spectre asked, plaintively, ignoring his pleading, scarred grey hands open, palms up in questioning. "I was nothing but a humble patron. Why did you let them kill me?"

The landlord had scooted himself as tightly into the corner as possible. "I didn't know," he quailed. "Please forgive me, oh please don't haunt me, I thought if I didn't give you the Blue you'd be all right- I tried to _help_ you-!" _It must be here to punish me, oh Primus why didn't I suspect it…_ "Please I _swear _I didn't know they'd go so far-"

"…you would have been satisfied had they merely beaten me to within a klik of offlining?" The terrible voice had grown harsh, the staring optics flickering with an inner fire.

"No, no, that wasn't what I meant-!" _Don't make it angry, don't make it angry-!_

The apparition's face contorted in anguish, and the first flickers of exaggerated 'spark energy' whipped out around the broken edges of his canopy. "I can not rest, friend." Words groaned their staticky way from his vocaliser. "I will remain trapped here while this remains unpunished. You are my only connection to this world…" He reached out his arms, pleading. "Please, do not resist your moral duty!"

"But-but I don't know _how_… I-I don't know what-"

"Why did you let them kill me?" came the plaintive wail. It truly was the cry of a creature in terrible pain. A fresh flurry of sparks shivered up around the wounds at the broken hips, trailed up and out along the arms, and the blue optics gazed beseechingly and unfocused right through him. "You knew, and you let it continue. You knew what would result from our meeting and yet you chose not to warn me."

"I didn't know I swear, I didn't know…"

"Until they are punished, I can not rest," the ghoul wept, piteously, again inching closer. "Until justice is brought, I may not sleep. And I am so tired… so tired…! Doomed to walk alone for all eternity until this terrible debt is paid."

The landlord shivered in his corner and tried to ignore the creeping chill breeze that wafted across his face. It had a high, unreal smell to it, like the sweet stink of decaying machines.

"You know who they are," came the tortured sobs. "You know who they are, and you resist your duty."

"I can't." The words spat free with difficulty. It felt like they were sticking in his vocaliser. "They'll-… they'll know, they'll kill me-"

"Why do you know speak of what you know?" the hideous voice pleaded, ignoring his protests. "How did they involve a good, honest machine like you in their wicked trade…? How did you allow yourself to be persuaded into it?"

"I was blackmailed-…!" the landlord wailed, struggled to retreat further from the advancing spectre. Any minute now, it'd dip its hand and take possession of his brain, wrest control from him, spill out all his secrets and condemn him to his own Pit of despair. "I swear I didn't know things would go so far. I thought the fuss would die down after a few dozen orns! I never even thought the stuff was real-!"

"Tell me who they are!" The voice keened higher, fracturing, now more static than words. Spark lightning lit the rolling mist with an unnatural blue glow and the pale optics blazed feverishly bright. "Tell me, and let me pass on over-! _Allow me my sleep, landlord!_"

"_Fatigue_, his name is Fatigue-!" the landlord shrieked, folding in on himself, curling down on his spark. "Giant caterpillar tractor, he's the one they all listen to, he's the one who ordered it, he's the one you want, now please oh _Primus_ please leave me alone-!"

0o0o0o0o0o0

Lurking in the alleyway down the side, close to the windows, Spotweld leaned closer to Pulsar, and whispered, amusedly; "even if he is overacting something terrible, we should give him full marks for effort!"

"Give him full marks for _some_thing_._ I mean, gah! That _voice_!" Pulsar winced exaggeratedly and planted her palms down over her audios. Now he'd got into the swing of it, the Seeker's nasal tones were even more grating than usual, terrible and hollow, like a poorly-tuned radio. "He could break mountains with it."

0o0o0o0o0o0

There was a long, slow sigh, and that sickly sweet breeze wafted over his features. "Thank you, landlord," the voice whispered, softly, and the chill wafted deeper, closer…

The landlord curled in his corner and waited for the final blow, the icy fingers that would dip into his brain and break his sanity, take control of his actions, force him to do what he didn't want-

A breem had passed before he realised that nothing had happened.

When he finally dared to uncover his optics and look up, his cell was empty. The ghost, the rolling mist, the flickering spark energy and the chill in the air, all had gone, all as quietly as it had all arrived.

He sat up, whimpering softly and comfortingly to himself, and silently consoled himself that he'd survived the visitation. That he was stronger than he had at first considered himself. That he was braver and stronger and this hadn't crushed him at all, not one bit.

"_Please I swear I'll tell you everything_," the landlord wailed, at the empty corridors. "_Just please, __please__ don't let him haunt me-!..._"

0o0o0o0o0o0

His cycle or two of recharge hadn't put Skywarp into a better mood. If anything, it had made his mood _worse_. "You could have _warned_ me you were gonna boom at us," he groused, bitterly, sitting on the floor with his knees tucked up, apparently still recalibrating his audios. "You've made my head hurt."

"Oh, so no 'thanks for saving my aft', then? I guess that was too much to hope for."

"Hey, come on. I only wanted _a few_ astro-seconds warning! How hard would _that_ have been?"

"Well, it wasn't exactly the most _planned _rescue in my long glorious history of 'Dragging Skywarp out of the Pit by his Tailfins'," Thundercracker waved a hand, irritably. "I had to make a split-second decision, and distracting them with a sonic boom was the only thing I could think of, short of pitching in with my fists and getting creamed alongside you."

"I was _not_ getting _creamed_! I was doing pretty well for someone _on his own_."

"Oh, face it, Warp, you weren't just getting your aft handed to you, you were getting it served up to you with all the trimmings on their best titanium tableware." Thundercracker flicked his wrist and sent a cube of energon sailing gracefully through the air between them. "Besides, you wouldn't have _been_ on your own if you'd given me a fraction of a breem more time to actually _get_ there."

"If I'd waited for you-…" Skywarp glared down into his cube, aware that his wingmate had probably given it to him to get him to be quiet. It was hard to talk and refuel at the same time through the same intake. "…-we'd have _lost_ him."

"We _did _lose him!"

"Yeah, thanks to _you_," Skywarp muttered, glowering hotly, then made a face and allowed, "And thanks to his little followers showing up."

"You're such a charitable spark," Thundercracker touched fingers of one hand to his chest, melodramatically. "I'm so glad it's not _all my fault_ that you jumped in before I got there, got a walloping, and then lost the target."

Skywarp glowered. "…you're such an _aft_."

"Yeah, I had a good tutor." Thundercracker settled opposite where Skywarp sat, and hooked a cable up to the city grid to piggyback a little charge off their nearest neighbour. "At least we know what they look like."

"That's not gonna help us much, now they know we know where they drop supplies off. They'd be idiots to keep on using the _Flywheel_. I'm surprised they were so brazen in the first place, with all the police about," Skywarp huffed. "If those Autobots hadn't showed up, we could have followed him, easy, especially while he was still deaf."

"I guess we'll have to go back to aerial patrols," Thundercracker sighed. "We might spot them without _them_ seeing _us_, if we go high enough."

"If we've got the energy to get airborne." Skywarp examined the energon in his hand, morosely. "How many cubes have we got left?"

"Including that one? One."

Skywarp promptly inhaled fuel down the wrong intake. "This is our last cube?" he asked, once energon had ceased spluttering from his air lines, and stared at the thin layer of violet left in the bottom. "Why didn't you tell me? We could have rationed better-"

"We rationed as well as we could," Thundercracker argued. "If we'd been any more frugal we'd have fallen out of the sky."

"I bet you didn't even have any."

"What? Don't be daft. I had mine when I got back from sentry duty," Thundercracker replied, so glibly that Skywarp was sure he was lying, to save face. "We're just going to have to try going further afield to find a reputable supplier."

"We could try playing the pity card on Shockwave. He's _rolling_ in energon."

"Um, Warp, how long have we been gone? And have you _forgotten_ what Shockwave is like? _Pity_?"

"Well, we've got to do something. We can't scrounge ergs off the grid for very long." Skywarp waved an irritable hand at Thundercracker. Taking charge off the grid was a temporary solution, and the more they did it, the more likely it would be that someone noticed and came looking to see where the bleed-off was. "I bet you we can trick him out of some. One of us will blind him with illogic, the other can sneak about and swipe a few."

0o0o0o0o0o0

Vorns ago, Fatigue had earned his name because of his slow, slouching manner, but that was usually as far as the descriptor went. He wasn't usually as genuinely _tired_ as he was now. He was irritable and disappointed and tired of his co-conspirators' whining, and having to report back to the Boss in this frame of mind wasn't usually a good thing.

"They're definitely on to us, Boss," he grumbled softly into the video connection, and glared down at his two accomplices, who were still whining and groaning about the pain in their auditory sensors. _Lightweights._ "Had a run-in with two Decepticons, tonight. Back at the _Flywheel_. Making the supply dump and one just came out of nowhere. Almost had him, too, but his backup arrived just before the police did. Both got away."

"Related to the threat left to us in the _Sphere_, no doubt," the Boss replied, softly. "They would seem to be stepping up their campaign. This is more bad news for our operation." A sigh. "Today I have been, ah, reliably informed… that our 'former associate' has been telling the police all they wished to know."

"The landlord's spilled it?" Siphon asked, finally getting up, rubbing his helm. "I _knew_ we shoulda pulled the plug on him early. Worthless scrap-heap's brought us nothin' but trouble – first them dopey fliers, and now _this_."

"Ah, we can deal with that scrawny protoform in our own sweet time," Fatigue dismissed the complaint. "It's those Decepticreeps I'm more worried about. Seekers I can handle, I don't want to tangle with Megs himself."

"I am inclined to consider these Decepticons to be rogue agents," the Boss demurred. "There is no evidence that Megatron is in control of their actions, or that he had anything to do with the message that was left with the _Sphere_. Your assailants must be connected to your first attack – perhaps the remaining members of the Air Commander's trine – which means that you will need to be more careful from here on. Loose cannons of this calibre are unpredictable at best, and they may prove to be more dangerous than you have anticipated."

"We almost had the first one," Deuce argued, grimly, from the floor. "Dopey airhead of a mech. All snarl, no sense."

"Still held his own against the three of us for a little while," Fatigue reminded him. "You might think he's just a dopey airhead, but he's got _wings_ and _big guns_, too, remember? And a _very loud_ friend."

"That was when he could _stay_ airborne. Did you see him? Looked _slagged_," Deuce pointed out. "I'll bet you he collapsed from exhaustion once we left."

"Well, that would confirm the theory that they are unconnected with Megatron," the Boss mused. "If they are so depleted they can barely fly, they must lack a reputable fuel source. Megatron is responsible for bringing a lot of energon back to Cybertron. I can not imagine he would allow his operatives to become so badly maintained if they were carrying out one of his plans. We have all seen his reactions to failure – why _encourage_ your officers to fail by not allowing them the energy they require?"

"Could be a trick, Boss."

"It could be, yes." There was a disparaging chuckle. "Megatron is not that clever, though." There was a thoughtful pause. "If they are finding things so difficult on their own, perhaps we could make them a better deal than Lord Megatron did," the Boss wondered. "Work for us, and your energy needs will be a concern of the past."

Fatigue stared at the screen in undisguised horror for a moment or two. "Work _with_ them?" he spluttered. "You want to replace us with _Decepticons_?!"

There was a sibilant chuckle. "My loyal associates, nobody appreciates your assistance more than me. You are my inner circle, my valued advisors, and I would never consider replacing you," the soft voice reassured. "But… ah, how can I put it without being insulting. You were not designed with _war_ in mind. To have a pair of such lethal warriors on our side, warriors with wings and heavy armaments, would only be an asset."

Deuce psh-ed. "I would argue the term 'lethal'."

"Hey, he kicked _your_ aft pretty well," Siphon pointed out, gleefully. "How's your nose, Sweets, still smarting?"

"Augh, slander-!" Deuce aimed a swing at him.

"It's only slander if it's not true." Siphon easily ducked the intended blow. "No wonder you took such a clobbering, you couldn't hit the side wall of a warehouse."

"I swear, Tubes, if my head didn't still hurt I'd be-"

"Cut it out, the pair of you," Fatigue growled, and gave Siphon a swat around the back of the helm when the smaller mech passed him. "If you have to have a lovers' tiff, at least wait until the Boss is done giving out orders."

"I must admit I am relieved to see you are still all so energetic!" the Boss chuckled, wryly. "Fatigue, thank you. Here are your new instructions. We will deal with our troublemaking Seekers in time. More important is the need to deal with our traitorous landlord." A set of co-ordinates pinged up at the side of the viewing panel. "This time. These co-ordinates. Stick to the plan _to the letter_ and you will skirt the security net when it carries out its nightly recalibration. By the time the patrols discover our little turncoat, he will be beyond help."


	12. Chapter 12

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Twelve**

**Disclaimer:** As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. (...Except where they're obviously OCs, which Hasbro would be silly to want to claim.)

**A/N: **I think it's a bad thing that I can't get Boney M's "Rasputin" out of my head while I'm writing this. Some of the lyrics are just so… _fitting_… :augh:

Again, thanks to my lovely, lovely reviewers. I think I'd have lost interest and gone on to pastures new without you. :)

* * *

To the lonely pair of Seekers, Shockwave's complex looked fairly comprehensively inpenetrable. They stared up at the doorway for several long moments before finally getting the courage to sneak inside.

"You go distract him," Thundercracker hissed. "I'll see if I can sneak a few cubes. I know where he used to keep them."

"Okay- hang on, what? _Me_? Why me?!"

"I distinctly remember you telling me we should blind him with illogic, which means you are and always will be the best mech for the job."

"But that was only an examp-"

Thundercracker gave him a friendly little push. "I'll be rooting for you!"

"That's not-… hey!"

Thundercracker was already in the corridor to the storage rooms; he gave him a broad grin and a derisory little wave, and vanished behind the wall.

Skywarp huffed and paced, for a few moments. _That_ wasn't what he'd had in mind. He'd anticipated managing to dump Thundercracker back in the role of bait while he teleported himself into the energon store and filled his subspace with as many cubes as he could physically carry. Trust TC to mess his plans up!

After a moment or two of huffing to himself, and wondering what he'd actually _say _once he met up with the Decepticon guardian, he caught a glimpse of a reflection and realised he had an audience. He could almost _feel _the one solitary optic that bored its gaze into his back like a superheated laser. He turned slowly on one heel, and tried to look nonchalant. "Um-… hello, Shockwave?"

Shockwave's single optic flickered, once, and the weapon he had levelled at Skywarp's chest never wavered. "You are not welcome here, traitor."

Skywarp offered an uneasy grin that only made him look like he was up to something, and fidgeted. "Traitor? Oh come on, that's a bit strong, isn't it? I'm still a pure-sparked Decepticon, at my core," he clapped a hand to his cockpit, dramatically. "If only you gave me the opportunity, I'd prove it!"

Shockwave looked unimpressed, but thankfully did lower his gun. "You are not authorised to use the space bridge," he intoned, sounding bored, anticipating what he thought Skywarp was lurking around for. "Megatron does not want you interfering with his plans on Earth."

"I don't want to use the space bridge," Skywarp argued, cheerfully.

Shockwave had already turned away and headed back to his computer terminal to fiddle about with whatever he was working on. Clearly had better things to do than argue with those he considered below him. "With that in mind, what _do _you actually want, Skywarp?"

_Well, at least he's not __shot__ me yet_. "Do I need to want something? I'm only here to see how my most favourite of all loyal Decepticons is. Company, and all that, you know?"

Shockwave made a funny little noise that could have meant anything but was probably unimpressed. "Do I assume by this you have lost Thundercracker now, as well as Starscream?"

"Iiii…. couldn't possibly comment on that," Skywarp replied, evasively.

"I am assuming that was confirmation by omission I just heard."

Skywarp frowned and tried to wrap his brain around that. "Uhhh… how would _that _work, exactly?"

Shockwave deigned to elaborate. He turned in his seat, and gave Skywarp a long hard stare; he didn't move his head, but the dark Seeker could sense his probing gaze go all the way from his head down to his thrusters and back up.

At last, Cybertron's guardian flickered his optic, and deadpanned; "Were you _always _this filthy?"

All Skywarp's carefully planned arguments – such as they were – evaporated into mist. "…what?"

"You are disgusting. Go and have a bath, then come back and we will talk."

"…a _bath_? Wait- what? You won't even _talk _to me? Until I've _washed_?!"

Another flicker. "No." Pause. "And you can tell Thundercracker that he will not find any energon in _there_, only anti-aircraft lasers."

As if on cue, there was a muted subsonic howl of pain from somewhere distant and the high-pitched mosquito whine of electrical discharge.

"Megatron suspected you may attempt something like this," Shockwave filled in, while Skywarp gaped and tried to get his vocaliser working again. "He instructed me to exercise appropriate precautions."

"You-…" Skywarp's vocaliser was working overtime, spitting out a billion fragments of sound in an effort to sum up his outrage, but not actually achieving any lucid words. "…you total… _slagger_! How could-… augh!"

"Can I safely assume you no longer just wish to talk?"

Shockwave's weapon was coming back up. _Get out of there, Warp_. Alarmed, Skywarp cast a shot across Shockwave's front – not trying to damage him, just startle him – and had twisted into a teleport before the other machine could reciprocate.

Shockwave watched him go, and permitted himself a small inward smile. All those millions of vorns as Cybertron's sole Decepticon guardian had given him plenty of experience in protecting his hoard. If he could keep frantic, ravenous Autobots out (most of the time), then he was more than capable of keeping this under-clocked pair of Seekers at bay.

0o0o0o0

Thundercracker had sat himself down on a convenient, broken old wall to lick his wounds while he waited for Skywarp to track him down. He looked a little scorched, but thankfully otherwise undamaged. "Next move?" he wondered, grimly, gazing glumly up at Skywarp as his wingmate walked disconsolately over. "Because I'm fresh out of bright ideas."

"Me too, pretty much," Skywarp agreed, glumly, plonking his aft down beside his wingmate. "How about we just go for a full-frontal assault on the space bridge and smash Shockwave through brute strength and force of numbers, and force him to tell us where he's hidden the energon."

Thundercracker managed a tired laugh. "How long do you think we should charge off the grid for _that_?"

"Oh, I guess a _vorn _or two should do it." Skywarp rumbled a sigh from his vents. "Do you think the Autobots have any energon?"

"I think they know us too well for us to be able to bribe _them_ to give any up."

"I didn't mean like that, I meant for us to swipe while they're not watching. I doubt they're smart enough to booby-trap _their_ storage facilities."

"Right now, I don't feel like testing the theory," Thundercracker disagreed, glumly. "We didn't suspect Shockwave would have, either, right?"

Skywarp hmph-ed softly in agreement, and an awkward silence reigned for a few moments.

"…I wish Screamer was here," Skywarp confessed, unnecessarily.

"Me too," Thundercracker nodded, and added, as if to lighten the mood; "if only so we'd have someone to blame for all the slag that's gone wrong so far." He stared down at the broken floor between his feet. "Seriously, now. I hate to say it, but we're going to have to make some proper plans for the future, Warp," he said, softly. "We can't wing it like we have been, for long. We have to find a good reputable fuel supply, and we have to decide what in the Pit we're going to do to support ourselves. There's not a whole lot of openings for mechs like us in the general market."

Skywarp managed a faint smile. "We could be mercenaries for hire," he quipped, dryly. "Subduers of Brutal Thugs."

"If only we weren't considered the thugs in need of subduing, half the time."

"Okay, how about Private Investigators?" Skywarp managed a lopsided grin. "We could make a packet."

"Because you wouldn't be bored to the point of voluntary self-destruct after half an orn, or anything," Thundercracker snerked. "Besides, we've not done so brilliantly, of late."

Skywarp pursed his lips, sadly, and shook his head. "And it's made my brain hurt."

0o0o0o0

They'd been treating him a lot better since his little change of heart, the landlord mused, flexing through the pages of an old "gossip-wafer" magazine. That horrible low-grade energon, the stuff that was only good for cleaning drains, had been replaced by a marginally better quality and certainly better filtered fuel. They weren't dragging him off for interrogation every few minutes, and one passing scientist had surreptitiously dropped off a handful of magazines for him while it was quiet, posting them carefully through the cell bars. They'd even _halfway _been persuaded to agree to get some help for him get his business back on its feet, if it turned out he genuinely had been blackmailed. Naturally he was milking _that_ idea for all it was worth.

And his visitor hadn't returned. That alone was worth it! Of course nobody believed him when he told them about the ghost – he'd had a strong idea that they thought he was just making it up, for sympathy. The security cameras had just shown him alone in his cell, in the grip of what looked like a terrible hallucination, all huddled up in a corner-

"Well well," a familiar voice purred, and the landlord startled. "Just look what we have in this little cage, here. Very rare species, this. Foolishly brave. Tangles with creatures far larger and stronger."

"Fatigue-?!" the landlord jumped so hard he fell off the end of his berth. _I'm safe, I'm safe, I'm in police custody, they can't get at me, it's fine-_ "Oh Primus what do you want?"

"Oh, not much. Just came to see how you were keeping." The giant shrugged, innocently. "As I heard you'd been, you know… telling anyone and everyone who asked everything they wanted to know about the program. Thought maybe you were ill. Or had a death wish, or something."

How in Primus' name could they possibly know _that_?! "I-I was coerced, I swear-!" he gabbed out, trying to keep the berth between himself and his visitors. "I was forced, they made me-" Fatigue could only possibly be here in an attempt to silence him. Ghosts suddenly became less of a big deal. At least ghosts were the only ones who could pass unhindered through a matrix forcefield.

"Aw, don't you worry yourself," Fatigue soothed, and smiled. "We know how sneaky these Policebots can be. They know exactly which buttons to press on a sneaky traitorous little spark like you. So to make you feel better, me and Siphon brought you a little present." There was the low _bip bip__ bip_ of large fingers on a keypad, and after an astro-second or two _the bars actually deactivated_. "Courtesy of the Designer."

"How are you-… how did-…" The landlord had backed right into the corner already, and could go no further. He almost wanted his spectral visitor back, if it meant he could exchange him for these two. "How can you get in here?! Leave me be, I promise, I was forced-… I'm being _haunted_, isn't that punishment enough-?! That flier you butchered, he's _haunting_ me!" His voice was skittering up the scale, growing more frantic the longer Fatigue ignored him. "He says he won't rest until you're brought to justice-!"

Fatigue smiled, chillingly. "Tell you what, how about we let you join him? You useless pair would get along well."

"You can't do this-… no, please, you can't. I have police protection! I have immunity-!"

The giant boxed him into the corner, leaving the bars switched off – deliberately, to add to the landlord's torment. _If only he could just dodge past them. If only he could get past he could escape-_

"Immunity to what, I wonder?" Fatigue leaned closer, a small, sizzling cube of blinding cobalt in his hand. "Not many folk are immune to this, I can tell you that for free."

"Please don't oh please don't-

"How about we give you a ringside view of what happens to those mechs whose first introduction to the product is by way of Screaming Blue?" Fatigue wondered. "You never did sample any of the products we gave you to sell, did you? Just a good little machine, selling it on to poor unsuspecting idiots who wanted to see if it was worth the hype and got themselves an addiction…" _How the Pit am I going to get this into him? _"Better than most of our suppliers, most of 'em got greedy and took it for themselves, but then… they were a whole lot more loyal than _you_, in a way. Didn't gab all their _privileged secrets _to the police."

"We're running out of time, Sleeper," Siphon reminded him from the doorway. "If he won't take his medicine, just give me the nod."

The landlord was contracting down on himself, whimpering and blubbering by turns. Oh for an alt-mode. He'd never wanted one until now. An alt _without a mouth_.

"I think you should at least sample it," Fatigue suggested, touching his massive fingers under his prey's chin. "Just so you know what you were tangling with. Before we leave you to think about what you've done."

The landlord had already been reduced to gibbering incoherence. The garbled words that spilled forth from his lips were a mixture of pleading and denials, the insistence that he was innocent and had been blackmailed into talking, that he'd do better if they gave him another chance, oh Primus just one more chance-

_Because you won't go straight to the police and get them to hide you somewhere we can't get to, if we take you at face value?_ Fatigue let his irritation bubble to the surface, and gave his prey a punch in the faceplates. "I'm getting tired of this," he hissed. "You got your chance to do things the easy way, now it's the hard road."

Feeble hands shoved at him, but they were uncoordinated, shaky. Another punch put paid to even that attempt at rebellion.

"Tubes, get your aft over here," Fatigue snapped. "Didn't want to have to do this, but it looks like I ain't got a whole lot of choice in the matter."

Siphon was a lot lighter than he looked. He bounced lightly up and perched against their victim's chest, and smiled, sweetly. "Open up, friend. Time for your medicine."

The landlord shook his head, frantically, but the joints had been loosened by Fatigue's violence. Siphon's spidery fingers pried his lips open with only the smallest effort.

"There's a good boy," Siphon cooed, letting the fingers of one hand reform into a long, fine nozzle. "Sit still for me, now…" He set the tip of the nozzle against his prey's lips, and thrust _hard_ on his arm.

The landlord thrashed in Fatigue's grip as the pipe gouged its way to the back of his intake, scraping surface components away. There was a barely audible hiss of equalising pressure, and the harsh scent of powerful, contaminated fuel rose in the air a second or two before the icy surge of a high-pressure flow hit his inlet pumps. The unfortunate creature bucked hard in Fatigue's restraining grip, trying futilely to throw his assailants off, struggling to purge his systems, but the fight in him was weakening.

"All right, all right, you wasted enough on him," Fatigue groused, after a few moments had passed in comparative silence, finally releasing his grasp on the protoform's skinny arms. "We still got more folk due a little Screaming Blue, don't you go using it all on _this_ waste of good components."

Siphon clucked an amused little laugh, and dropped lightly back to the floor. "I just wanted to make sure he'd had enough."

"There's such a thing as overkill, you know. And we've dallied here quite long enough," Fatigue snarled, gruffly. "We've got to make the next checkpoint before the patrols come around again. With any luck Deuce and Half-Hitch will have made contact with those two airheads by the time we meet up…"

Swimming in his increasingly turbulent sea of static, the landlord listened to the heavy clunk of departing footsteps, and the low _fzt_ of the bars coming back online, but then there was silence. Had he just managed to get out of this one as well? Well, aside from the addiction he knew he'd just earned, but he could plead his case with the police if need be.

…ugh. He thought Blue was supposed to be _nice_ until it wore off. This was _starting out_ pretty terrible. He retched and groaned, managing to maintain his balance for a moment or two before his gyros tipped him into the wall and then to the floor. His pumps were all making whining, clicking sounds inside him – attempting to force a purge of his tanks, but something was keeping them from doing so. A fault. Alien programming. Eject pumps weren't coming online. Couldn't purge. That couldn't be right. Ice felt like it was creeping along all his fuel lines, energon freezing up.

He sat on his floor and felt his gyros all gradually destabilising. He propped himself on his arms, trying to stop the way he was listing over to the right, but the room continued to rotate even though he knew he wasn't moving. He could feel the viral fractals interlacing into the layers of his programming, overwriting algorithms. Doubt seeded through his consciousness – maybe he _wasn't_ going to get out of this unscathed after all. He wanted to yell for help but something was keeping his vocaliser from onlining.

A flash of new sensations made him jump, startled. It felt like there were a billion tiny insects crawling over his exoskeleton – over the surface, and dipping _between_ the plates, an itching torment. He flapped his hands frantically over his plating, but instead of a the reassuring return to normal sensation each fleeting touch left a ribbon of fire. Itching, maddening, burning. He forced out a little whimper, _ah_! The insects were nibbling on his conduits, and he writhed involuntarily – actuators jerked, hydraulics contracted-

The walls were melting. Shifting, bowing inwards – maybe there _was_ a fire. His hands left trails of fiery pain across his armour because they _were _hot, heated by the furnace in the neighbouring cells. His coolant fans hadn't kicked in – but by now he had no idea which was the fault, which was the hallucination. Maybe it was his cooling systems that were faulty, failing to report this blistering heat.

Faces loomed up in the darkness – crystal ghosts, half-seen, roiling in mist. Was it his memory that was faulting? Spitting out memories as sensor-ghosts? Former customers wailed at him from the twisting, bowing walls. The terrible white Seeker screamed at him from the mist, features melting, twisting up into a parody of life, and blue optics full of crackling cobalt fractals dazzled him.

His vision fled apart into pixels even as his voice crawled up into a thin high scream of terror, but his hearing soon went over to static, and then stopped altogether.

0o0o0o0

They were almost home when Thundercracker noticed it.

Something… something wasn't right. Their warehouse, their derelict little sanctuary-… something was wrong. Their one tiny blot of privacy and safety on this entire globe had been invaded.

Skywarp was already sliding gracelessly into an exhausted descent, wings tilting, ailerons folding. He was still wittering on about nothing – how were they going to work the shifts, who would get first recharge, what if the guard dozed off, and so on. He wasn't paying attention to what had woken the urgency in Thundercracker.

"Warp, don't land," Thundercracker interrupted his wingmate's nonsense, urgently. "Pull up!"

"What?" Skywarp gunned his thrusters and hastily pulled out of his descent. "What in Primus name is wrong with you? I'm _tired_!"

"Nobody ever comes by our warehouse, right?"

"…right."

"So why's there lights moving about inside?"

Skywarp was silent, for a moment or two. When he finally spoke, it was if he couldn't decide if he wanted to be angry or upset. "Well isn't _this_ just fragging _perfect_," he whined, plaintively, as they continued their way over the rooftops. "As if it couldn't get any _worse_, now we've even been evicted from the scraggy little _hovel _we'd been forced to slum it in the past few orns. So now we're tired, dirty, depleted, _and _homeless. Fan-slagging-tastic." He snorted, and strafed low enough over a building to clip a flimsy communications aerial with his wingtip, and knock it to pieces. "Maybe we should just go buddy up with the Empties and be done with it." Another angry sideways wingflip broke a window.

"Eh, steady on, Warp," Thundercracker soothed. "We're not beaten right down yet. We'll head on to another district, get our heads down for a couple of dozen orns, wait until they've forgotten about us and we're in better shape, then we can get back to business with sorting this whole mess out. Right?"

"Yeah, because we've done _brilliantly_ so far," Skywarp sneered, sourly. "We've only had our wing-mate executed, run out of fuel, run out of friends, lost our only semi-safe place to recharge, and got a murderous gang of thugs on our tailfins." Beat. "I'm halfway persuaded to go grovel to Megs, see if he'll let us back on the _Nemesis_. I won't even bitch if he almost offlines me as a punishment."

Thundercracker was quiet. Skywarp had summed up what he himself was thinking. "Except he'd never forgive us if we went back empty-handed."

"Like Screamer wouldn't forgive us if he knew we gave up on him."

There was another brief silence. "All right, look," Thundercracker sighed. "We'll find a new place to put down for an orn or two, scrounge up enough ergs to get us the distance we want to go, then we'll move out. Can you remember seeing anywhere derelict enough that we'd go unseen?"

Skywarp's ability to teleport meant he was a pretty good navigator – teleporting safely without ending up in a wall meant a mech needed a faultless map, and Skywarp's maps were all in his head. Unfortunately, all those highly accurate three-dimensional triangulation co-ordinates meant there wasn't a whole lot of room left in his processors for the other sort of smarts.

"Let's go do a circuit or three," he offered, at last. "I may be able to spot somewhere familiar."

0o0o0o0

Had they known just how many factions were looking for them, the two Seekers – or should that be "Sought", now? – would probably have decided the most acceptable solution was to fly in a straight line and not stop until they were either halfway around the planet, or their energy ran out. Not only were the Blue loyalists after them, so now were a pair of over-optimistic Autobots. And the Autobots were a whole lot closer to success.

Prowl was first to spot them – lazy arrows in the cloudless sky. "Jazz-… Look. Up there."

Jazz followed the line of his friend's arm, and nodded. High above, a blue dart drew wide circles, making no effort to hide. "Wow. That's pretty brazen. I guess they have no idea who's clutching at their contrails."

Prowl watched as the circle gradually widened, then the jet abruptly switched from circle to straight line and moved closer their way. There was a split second of concern that he'd spotted them and the pair hunkered deeper into the shadows, but no. Just changing location. After a moment, Thundercracker went back to circling.

"Looking for something," Prowl confirmed Jazz's unspoken guess.

"Or someone."

There was a brief ripple like a heat-haze in the air, and Skywarp emerged from the disturbance to join his wingmate. They circled together for a while, wingtip-to-wingtip, then Skywarp slipped through another teleport and Thundercracker headed into a new vector, coming to draw his aerial circles almost directly above the hiding Autobots' heads.

"Unless Skywarp is running errands because they had a comms breakdown, there's only two of 'em," Jazz mused. "Confirms Nightsun's story about what happened to the Screaming one, I guess."

"Unless they know something we don't." Prowl shared a look with his friend. "Tenacity, remember?"

"Maybe we should just ask what they're up to." Jazz affected a look of total innocence and hefted his weapon. "You know, just a friendly little chat between fellow machines." He took careful aim – the Seeker was moving sedately and predictably, and was making no effort to take evasive manoeuvres if he'd even seen them.

0o0o0o0

"_Still nothing_?"

Skywarp rolled irritably. "Nothing," he confirmed, flying upside down over a run-down but heavily populated area. "Everywhere's got Empties. They're like a… a _plague_. Screamer's warehouse was a lucky one-in-a-thousand find." He huffed a little sigh. "There's a recycling plant in the next district which no-one has time to run any more. We might be able to hide out there, for a bit."

"_Gotta be better than nothing, I guess. With any luck there'll be ready-made places to pull from the grid. Let's just try one more vector here. Coming?_"

"Yeah, I guess. I'd rather not sleep _in _a recycle mill either, given the chance. Lemme just-"

He was interrupted by a sharp, loud fritz of static, and after a moment's alarmed silence Thundercracker's voice came back over the comm., scratchy and disjointed. "_…-been hit! Gonna ha-… to ditch."_

"Hit? Hit by who? TC!" Skywarp wheeled about and teleported. "Dammit, I'm coming!"

0o0o0o0

The blue Seeker didn't so much fly inelegantly down as drop like a rock, nose thrust groundwards, rolling helplessly on his axis and throwing up curls of electrical faults from around one engine. Any viewer from the ground could see the way he was struggling to regain lift – he managed to pull his nose out of his dive just in time to avoid crushing it, and half-flew wonkily over the heads of the watching Autobots, but too late to get himself airborne again. He slammed into the ground with a painful crunch, and skidded on his underside for a while, trailing skeins of smoke from one turbine.

There was an unholy yell of anger from somewhere behind and Skywarp came out of nowhere, strafing Jazz and Prowl with a badly-aimed smattering of laser-fire. The two Autobots dove for cover, before any of the shots could do anything more than superficial damage, and Skywarp howled over head, cursing them out for shooting Thundercracker in the back and swearing vengeance.

A moment or two was all it took to realise that it was a distractionary measure, not an attempt to kill them – not only were Skywarp's shots woefully underpowered, Thundercracker was already transformed and tottering unsteadily to his feet a short distance away from them. He looked like he was going to make a run for it, on the ground, rather than attempt to get into the air again.

Jazz took the initiative. He sprinted the short distance between himself and the Decepticon, and hurled himself bodily at his back before Thundercracker could get moving, crashing the pair back to the ground, _hard_. Thundercracker gave a muffled creak of pain, but didn't attempt to get back up.

Skywarp had already wheeled about, and now came back like some sort of avenging valkyrie, all spitting laser fire and howling invective.

Prowl was not particularly impressed with the ball of oncoming fury. He faced the black shape that fell like a comet towards him, lifted his weapon… and placed a single, precise shot into Skywarp's right shoulder vent. The Seeker visibly _jolted_ as the projectile hit home, but momentum (or sheer blind determination) kept him on track – Prowl realised just in time that Skywarp looked like he was going to attempt to impale him on his nosecone if he couldn't shoot him, and ducked out of the way just in time.

Skywarp kept up his barrage of insults until he'd passed overhead, so closely the Prowl could feel the heat of his engines and the rushing breeze of his passage-… then there was an almighty _crash_ and the squeal of metal-on-metal, the whipcrack sound of toughened glass breaking, and the tirade finally stopped.

The dark flier looked like he'd expended his very last reserves on that shrieking final run. He remained on his back as Prowl approached, and lifted his hands. "I surrender."

"You didn't put up much of a fight," Prowl observed, keeping his gun trained on the downed flier and noticing just how grimy and tired he looked. "So what's the trick this time?"

"No trick. Please." The dark Seeker looked exhausted, offered his wrists for the cuffs he knew Prowl would have somewhere about his person. "Just shut up and arrest us so we can finally get some rest."

Jazz peered at the sleepy flier as he tottered unsteadily to his feet, trying hard to maintain his balance with his wrists pinned. Thundercracker had already abandoned all attempts to stay on his own feet and had slumped to his aft, heeling dramatically to the left, just behind where Jazz was standing. "They're behaving? Prowl, I think we broke them."

"A likely story," Prowl grumbled, dubiously, but the pair of Decepticons were eerily obedient as they instructed them back to their feet and to get moving, back to the police headquarters.

...Had they turned around just then, they would have seen a flash of silver and white spin dizzily skywards on wings that would finally support his weight.

0o0o0o0

Forceps shaded her optics and watched as the tiny chip of starshine got smaller and higher, and couldn't help a sneaky smile at her own success. Orns ago she was doubting her ability to keep him alive, let alone get him patched up and flight-capable again, and now he was contentedly twirling out his happiness in the stratosphere, right where he belonged.

"_I'm going to stay up here for a bit_," came Scarlet's disembodied voice. "_Blow a bit of the dust out. Get a bit of feeling back in my wings. You don't mind, do you, Sepp_?"

"I get the impression it would be fairly moot if I _did_ mind," she growled, amusedly. "How about make yourself useful, if you're going to spend all evening skydancing. See if you can't track down those fliers we've seen in the neighbourhood. The sooner your brain is fixed, the sooner you'll be out from under my feet."

"_And there was me thought you _liked_ my company_," he observed, in a mock little petulant whine. "_You wound me, Mistress Surgeon_. _Mortally and spiritually._"

"Call me out on it, and you will be discovering how much of your foot you can swallow before you choke on it," she threatened, then added; "any twitches, faults, false starts or bad sectors, no matter how small, you tell me as soon as you get back. You'll undo all my hard work if you fall out of the sky and land back in a recycling mill, and I am _not_ going to labour for long hard orns patching you up again."

"_I knew you still loved me_." You could almost _hear _the sarcastic grin on his face.

Forceps snorted. "Yeah, yeah. I want a full diagnostic rundown when you get in, so keep recording the whole time you're out."

"_Yes ma'am_," came the mocking acknowledgement, and then silence.

Forceps shook her head wearily, then turned back indoors to find some energon to soothe her nerves.


	13. Chapter 13

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Thirteen (ooh, unlucky for some)**

**Disclaimer:** As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. (...Except where they're obviously OCs, which Hasbro would be silly to want to claim.)

**A/N:** I am _caffeinated_. Mmm, tea. That is all.

I'm going to have to start uploading this to my livejournal as well, so I can actually respond to some of the reviews a bit better. :sadface: I'm grateful for all and any comments I recieve, so thank you, lovely people. :)

This chapter ended up longer than I thought it'd be, I'm not sure how it managed it. :headscratch: Oh well. Currently trying to draw my cast – I'll upload it if I ever get it somewhere I'm halfway happy with. :touches wood:

--

"_Well_?"

Deuce had been by the window staring out over the docks for _at least_ a breem, which felt like far too long. He was halfway convinced to call Half-Hitch back from wherever he'd sloped off to, and put him back on sentry duty, but he didn't trust the layabout not to just goof about. "No sign of 'em, Fatigue," he sighed. "Maybe something spooked 'em.

"_Maybe they saw you_," Fatigue growled, and he had _that _tone of voice on. Deuce was relieved he was too far away to physically bludgeon him. "_Primus knows you're either too hyperactive or too _stupid_ to keep out of sight, half the time_-"

"I hear engines," Deuce interrupted. "Airborne ones."

Fatigue's irritable tirade stopped as quickly as it had started. "_Can you see anything?_"

"Nothing as yet," the truck gazed out of the window, briefly probed the heavens. "Might have been mistaken. Wait-… yes. Yeah, it's definitely coming this way. How long you going to be?"

"_Eh, few breems, minimum. Keep me posted._"

"Righto."

0o0o0o0

_Primus,_ it was good to be back in the air again. Even just doing something as mundane as a little aerial survey had a peculiar wonder to it, purely because it was done on the wing, in these endless skies. It took Scarlet a good few breems to calm down enough to just concentrate on the task in hand, and even then it was still mostly playtime. The temptation to roll with the crosswinds was too great to ignore _all_ the time.

Where _would_ a pair of machines camp out, if they didn't want to be found easily? (He presumed that to be the case, at least, since they'd made it so impossible for even a local like Forceps to get in contact with them.) Somewhere quiet, away from the population centre, but with ready access to amenities should they be needed, and plenty of space to hide away if unwanted visitors came to call.

It took him three leisurely sweeps across the district before he found a likely candidate. The warehouse was isolated and quiet – in a relatively good state of repair, for such a derelict area, on a silent quayside with a good open space out the front for easy take off and landings. The roof was open to the sky in a corner – so the inhabitants could see the sky, but prying eyes might be less likely to see _them_ – all the walls were good and solid for defence, and the interior would probably be nicely roomy, soothing on large wings and claustrophobia. Looked like the ideal place for a pair of down-on-their-luck flying machines to adopt as a temporary base.

He touched lightly down on his tiptoes on the quayside, and took a moment just to _feel_ the reassuring heat that rose from his heels, the soft little _clicks_ and _ticks _as the alloys cooled. The phoenix had not yet grown in all his flight feathers, but the _fire _was back, at least.

The place looked deserted, though. If it _was_ where they were staying, they weren't here now. Scarlet peeked warily in through the window, and surveyed the heaps of junk dotted about the empty space, but none of the heaps coalesced into either a hiding or a recharging body. They were genuinely just heaps of junk.

He picked his way gingerly through the door – who knew what sort of booby traps might have been left lurking for unsuspecting intruders? He knew that announcing his presence would probably have been the most sensible thing to do – if all Seekers were as wired-for-action as he always felt, _and _as heavily armed, startling them wouldn't be advisable – but he was fairly content they weren't here. They'd have heard his descent, if nothing else.

The place did look _sort-of _lived-in, with a little imagination. There was a rickety table and a couple of old crates in the corner closest to the window, and a disused old recharge berth with rusting pickup cables stood perpendicular to the wall, surrounded by a somewhat unsettling grey circle of smeared old lubricant. There were one or two discarded empty energon cubes on the floor, the crystal lattices tucked away almost out of sight behind an old crate, and a couple of comparatively clean insulated cables with shiny, well-used hookups curled alongside a jerry-rigged connection into a city gridline. So someone _had_ been here, and recently.

There was a news wafer on the table; it had been scuffed about and one crushed corner wouldn't hold an image any more, but the story currently open was familiar enough that he didn't need to read it to know what it was about. _Decepticons cleared of involvement in Blue threat_, with its accompanying grisly video. Luckily the wafer had been in the low lighting for so long that its battery had run down, and the video had greyed out to a static image.

He picked it up, gingerly – didn't really want to have to read _this_. But it did throw up some questions. What was it that was so important about this story that the mysterious pair of Seekers had a copy? He knew there'd been a fairly dire threat left at the _Sphere_ from two angry Decepticons – was this connected? Were they the ones responsible? It seemed too convenient for it _not_ to be connected. Which meant… could it be that they weren't staying for very long in one place because _they_ had been looking for _him_?

"Hey," a voice greeted, and he turned to find a delivery vehicle in an inner doorway, watching him. "Lost something, Seeker?"

"No-o." Scarlet shook his head, warily, setting the wafer back on the table and unconsciously gauging the distance to the exit. The newcomer's bearing was setting off alarm bells in his head – he had a… _predatory _look about him. Scarlet didn't like the ideas of being anyone's prey, let alone such a weaselly-looking groundling. "That is, I was looking for someone-"

"That pair of airhe-… er, Seekers?" the truck guessed, interrupting him and smiling that _hungry _smile. "I was waiting for 'em too. Want to wait together?"

Scarlet smiled, lopsidedly. "Not especially," he demurred, dryly. Didn't want to give _all _his plans away, and particularly not to someone who clearly didn't think too highly of flying mechs. Why was _he_ so interested with his plans, anyway? Unless… perhaps the truck was the reason the Seekers were absent. Scared them off – or maybe killed them, and stowed the bodies under the heaps of scrap. He glanced surreptitiously around, but didn't see any wings of thrusters poking out from under the chaos.

"We don't mean you any harm," the truck said, lazily.

_Right, and I'm Primus incarnate._ Scarlet edged warily back towards the doorway. If the truck was so harmless, why had he mentioned it, so unnecessarily and so out-of context? The second he was back under clear skies, he gunned his thrusters and was airborne, using just enough thrust to counterbalance his weight and hover just out of reach.

"Oh, hey, no need for that! We only wanna talk to you. No need to be scared!" The truck leered up at him, looking half-crazed.

"Psh. I'm not afraid of you," Scarlet argued, and was reassured to realise he meant it.

"Says the mech who just ran away to where we can't get at 'im."

"You're confusing _fear _with _prudence_," Scarlet corrected. "I don't want your dirty paintmarks all over my clean fuselage. Plus, I don't want your partner to jump on me when I'm busy distracted by you."

"Who says I even _have_ a partner?" the truck challenged.

"You keep saying 'we'. That implies there's someone else here that you're working with."

The truck spread his hands. "Aw, okay, you caught me out," he accepted. "Yeah, we're working in pairs, right now. Didn't want to miss you, y'see. We got an offer for you."

"What could a dirty little ground-pounder like you have to say that _I_ could be interested in?" Scarlet folded his arms over his chest and rumbled his thrusters, as if about to make his departure.

"Well, see, we're in a position of power in this district, and we're thinking of branching out. We got an opening for a flier. We've been trying to catch up with you guys for a few orns." The groundling shrugged. "Factions are gonna be changing, soon, here," he added, somewhat cryptically. "A new power is gonna replace the stagnating Decepticons. We're gonna pull all sorts together, rejuvenate the place under one banner. The future's gonna be bright, and we need powerful machines like yourself to carry the message."

_Blue_, Scarlet realised, although it didn't take a lot of thought to work it out. "So _you're_ one of the ones responsible for putting the Blue on the streets," he mused, out loud, working hard at keeping his anger internalised. "Am I to assume you're one of the ones from the video, as well?"

"_That_ I can neither confirm nor deny," the truck replied, but the modest way he'd placed a hand on his chest confirmed Scarlet's suspicion.

The only outward sign of Scarlet's sudden fury was the way his optics flickered brighter. To have one of the brutes responsible for his near-death-experience right here at his thrusters… He wanted to land square on him, stamp a white-hot thruster through the underclocked fragger's smirking face. That wouldn't get a whole lot of information out of him, though, and torturing the slagger was out of the question, because he had no idea _where_ or _how large _the other half of the pair was.

"Remind me why you think I'll consider this a good deal," Scarlet prompted, stiffly.

"Like I say, we got an opening in the hierarchy for a flier. Boss said to open the invitation to you."

It took even more squashing to kill the sudden urge to let out a blood-curdling shriek of anger, scream about how _dare_ they even suggest it after they left him for dead, and smash the truck where it stood.

"You're a great candidate, after all. Your optics are just the right colour," the truck went on, grinning. "A little lick of paint, and you could be our public relations officer." He clucked amusedly at his own joke. "What do you say?"

"I say… I'm curious," Scarlet lied. "It's a tempting offer. What do I get out of it, aside from infamy?"

"Command. Power. A fleet of femmes to polish you to a mirror shine, if you wanted. Whatever. Think about it?"

"Oh, I'll think about it, all right," Scarlet let a disgusted smirk simmer to the surface. _I'll think how good it'll be to squash you, bug. _"How do I reach you?"

"Oh, we'll find _you_, Snowdrop," the truck gave him a mocking little salute. "Just keep visible."

Scarlet 'saluted' back, and departed, seething inwardly. _Snowdrop__! For __that alone_,_ he's going to die!_

0o0o0o0

From the warehouse, Fatigue watched the flier whisk sleekly away in the stratosphere, a twinkling silver arrow under muted starshine. "Another one of Megatron's loyalists come to see what we're up to, Deuce?"

Deuce looked back, and shook his head, warily. "Nah. Not sure even _he_ knew what he was up to," he disagreed. "Not one of Megs's. Looked like a Neutral. Autobot, at worst. Didn't even try shoot me."

"Neutral flier? Interesting. I thought fliers – 'specially Seekers – were far too polar to be able to sit on the fences, in this war. Still, we could do with a couple of Autobots in the ranks, and at least we have a backup plan if we need it. If we can't get them other two, we can try snag that one. Being a 'Con wasn't highest on the Boss' list, after all, right? Flying and sharpshooting were, and that pretty little white scrap of wings had all the right attributes."

"And niice big cannons," Deuce agreed, with a dirty grin, measuring an air-gap with his hands to demonstrate an exaggerated size. "Did you see 'em? So _sweet_. Maybe the Boss can get _me_ a couple."

Fatigue gave him a tired swat around the back of the helm. "Irrepressible letch."

0o0o0o0

The trip back to the police station was… unexpectedly uneventful. Neither Seeker put up much more than a flicker of resistance, and even then it looked like it was only because it was expected of them. Skywarp at least had the energy to spare on insults, calling their captors every foul name he could think of; he walked a pace or two behind his wingmate, one dark wing placed between Thundercracker and the Autobots, as it trying to make some kind of protective mantle.

As for Thundercracker, he looked barely able to remain standing on his own – it was something of a miracle he'd stayed aloft as long as he had. Jazz shooting him down probably saved him from the far more humiliating fall from the sky when his energy ran too low to keep him airborne. He walked with a slow half-shuffle, head down, optics dimmed.

There was a clustering of white in the cell-block, just inside the double doors – a crowding mass of officers all around one cell, and nervous, excited chattering. Hardline stood blocking the corridor, big white arms folded across his broad chest, and pointed silently with a thumb down the adjacent corridor. Prowl agreed with the sentiment – whatever was going on in that cell, it wouldn't be good to get Decepticons tangled up in it as well – and directed the little party down the opposite corridor.

They put the two Decepticons into the cells – giving them adjoining units, under the façade of Autobot kindness, but actually to encourage them to talk and let their plans slip – removed the cuffs, and then left them in peace. No strafing laser-fire followed in their wake, but whether that was out of a grudging respect for the rules of fair play or just plain old we're-too-tired-to-shoot, neither Autobot could really tell.

The commotion in the adjoining cell block was more of a cause for concern than anomalous Seekers. While Jazz headed up to the monitor room for a spot of Decepticon-sitting, Prowl hung back, to find out what had gone on in their absence.

"Chief Inspector? What's happened?" he moved alongside the riot tank, and peered into the cell. There was a forensics team in there, and a couple of smaller constables, helping with recording and moving things around, but no landlord. "Did he escape?"

"If only." Hardline shook his head, grimly, and didn't look at him. "Attacked. We've got him stable at the District General but we're not holding out much hope for a recovery," he replied, and his voice was harsh, stilted. "Trying to work out how in the _Pit_ they got in, whoever did it." Well, that explained why he was being so _short_ – he was angry, and particularly frustrated that they'd done it _right under his nose_.

0o0o0o0

Up in the monitor room, Jazz settled by the monitors with a cube of energon, hooked his feet up on the desk, and watched their new prisoners, hopefully. That they'd never talk openly about whatever diabolical plan they were carrying out, he had no doubt – and certainly not in a building swarming with Autobots – but then, they weren't renowned for being the brightest of machines, Skywarp in particular. They might just… let things slip, if he was lucky, and patient.

Each flier made a cursory examination of their new accommodation, which revealed no hidden passageways, no movable walls, no sufficiently-large vents through which a determined Seeker could make egress, and a subspace baffle to keep a certain teleporter from teleporting. The only escape route was the same way they'd got in, and that point of exit was blocked by the softly humming energy bars.

…not that either looked inclined to do more than just _discuss _how to attempt an escape, now they'd satisfied themselves there was no easy way out. Survey completed, they just sat in their respective doorways, as close as they could physically get to each other, wingtips deliberately touching where they protruded out through the bars and into the corridor. In spite of a comprehensive knowledge of their history, it was hard not to feel sorry for them – they hardly seemed motivated to do anything apart from sit and talk, in quiet, exhausted voices. Two more scruffy, dirty, tired Decepticons would have been hard to find.

"Well, at least they solved the problem of where we're gonna _stay_, for us," Thundercracker's voice came over the surveillance feed. He had his legs outstretched across his cell, hands laced in his lap,

In the adjoining cell, Skywarp jostled his wings impatiently and tucked his knees up, sulkily. "Just let me out of here. I'll show 'em. I could kick all of their afts, anyday."

"That fight you were losing filled you with a whole new confidence, didn't it?" the blue Seeker creaked, amusedly. His vocaliser was spitting out occasional badly-tuned chips of sound – must already be running on vapours.

"I will have you know I was not _losing,_ I was dealing out a serious _aft-kicking_." Skywarp gave a tired snort. "Everyone's a critic."

Jazz glanced down at the cube of energon in his hand, and felt a tiny unexpected pang of sympathy for the ravenous pair down in the cellblock. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to rustle up a little low-grade for them.

"Okay, how about we wait until they've gone to get some shutdown, then we break out of here, and-…" Sounded like a stifled yawn, a little fritz of static. "…then we'll steal _allll_ their energon." Pause. "And some soap."

"Great plan, Warp. How do you plan on us getting out of here to actually accomplish it?"

"Oh, I was going to leave that bit to you. You're the brains of the outfit."

There was another pause, and the two Seekers put on their best glares of death as a small hovercar scuttled past the feed. Jazz smiled.

"How about you teleport out of your cell, then disengage the bars so _I_ can get out?" Thundercracker suggested, once they were alone again.

"Too tired. Besides, I can't see where I'm going, they've got some sort of gadget running that's mucking about with my triangulation."

"One little teleport can't be that hard? You only need to go the distance of a single stride past the bars."

"Oh, because you're the _expert_ now, of course. If I can't sense where I'm going, I'll end up _in_ the bars, or something, and I know without even having to try it that _that_ will _hurt_." Another of those grumpy noises. "Tell you what, if you're so clever, how about you give me the boom, and I'll give you the teleport for a few orns. Fair?"

"…you don't _need_ a sonic boom, you're noisy enough without it."

"Actually, that's a good idea," Skywarp sat forwards a little and leaned closer to the bars, as if it would be a little less likely for the Autobots to overhear. "When they come down here to feed us, boom at 'em! We can skip out when they're distracted."

"Oh come on, since when would they waste good energon on _us_?"

"They're _Autobots_, stupid. Come on, it's got to be worth a try. Just warn me when you're gonna do it this time."

"…shut up, Skywarp."

A breem or two passed in dozy silence. Thundercracker was first to retire to his berth – he had drifted away from full consciousness and gradually slumped down in his doorway, until the lower margin of his protruding right wing brushed against the bars. The shock of contact startled him back awake with a yip of alarm, but he soon recognised where he was.

"I'm going to recharge," he grunted, standing stiffly.

"…uh?" Sounded like Skywarp was just as muggy.

"You know. Shut down for a bit. Build up my energy. That."

"Uh."

With no-one to talk to – not that they'd been talking a whole lot in the first place – Skywarp soon followed suit. The berths were far too small for them to comfortably lay full-length on – their wings would have jammed against the wall, and getting close enough to connect to the hookups would have been impossible. Instead, Thundercracker had settled in a funny half-seated diagonal, and hardly looked comfortable. Skywarp was an untidy sprawl perpendicular to his berth, canopy on the foam surface, legs trailing on the floor. His head was cricked at a funny angle that looked like it'd probably be painful when he roused, actuators freezing up from the awkward posture. They'd barely moved since then. The only sounds that came from their cells were the soft cycle of coolant fans.

"So how many times have they tried to escape so far?" Prowl asked, startling a sleepy Jazz back awake.

"Remarkably, none." Jazz gestured a hand to the screens. "I don't know what's wrong with 'em! They've been like that the past few breems. Just… recharging."

"So far as you can tell, while you were busy recharging, yourself?" Prowl smiled, wryly. "I was going to pay the hospital a visit, get the lowdown from the landlord's doctor. Are you coming?"

Jazz nodded, and hastily finished his energon. "Yeah, sounds good. I don't think they'll be going anywhere for a while."

0o0o0o0

The landlord had been taken up to the Intensive Monitoring Unit, and settled into a quiet room on his own. His doctor, who introduced himself as Doctor Debug, Consultant Overhaul's registrar, was a protoform almost as scrawny as his patient, pristine white with a mint-green trim on his arms, almost like surgical gloves.

"I wouldn't hold out much hope for a recovery," Debug explained, softly, as they arrived. "Whatever he was given was a fairly potent viral. First it interlaced with his psyche, then overwrote large chunks of it. There's too much disruption to his cognitive functions for him to regain consciousness."

Jazz stared grimly in through the open doorway, at the silent body laying on the berth, and all the diagnostics terminals peeping softly as they monitored for changes. Cooling fans dutifully hummed, pumps clicked softly and moved energy to where it was needed, but the optics were offline and every single voluntary mechanism was still. He was alive, granted, but it could hardly be described as _living_.

"For now, we're calling it a persistent vegetative state." Debug spoke softly, as if to avoid waking his patient. "It's technically inaccurate, because he doesn't even respond to painful stimuli, but it sums up the total lack of cognitive activity. His processors are basically running autonomous functions, and nothing else."

"Would it be possible to cure him?"

"Possible? Well, maybe. If we can purge the fractals and repair the deletions, maybe he'll wake up. But will he be the same machine? Unlikely. There's just… too much of him _gone_. It's not just memories that have been overwritten, but protocols, algorithms, you name it and the fractals have gone through it. The only things it didn't touch are his lower functions – energy handling, basic maintenance, that sort of thing." He smiled, apologetically. "Mind you, we, ah… still haven't worked out how to fix the damage," he admitted. "The fractals regrow, just… not down the same pathways. We're thinking that if you don't delete them correctly, they regrow over completely different neuronal tracts." Debug hesitated. "Although that's just a hypothesis. Every time we've attempted to delete them, they've come back. We're being optimistic when we say 'if you delete them correctly', because we don't even know if you really _can_."

"I don't understand how this ever got into use as a narcotic if it's so dangerous," Jazz objected. "If what you're saying is anything to go by, it's a poison.

"I think – and again I'm hypothesising – it's a question of _quantity_," the doctor replied. "Small quantities, and you're… well, not _safe_, per se, because you'll still be addicted, but still capable of cognitive thought. What happened to this poor fellow was down to the _volume_ he was given – essentially, he massively overdosed, and I can't imagine he took it willingly."

"You're implying," Prowl said, slowly, "that someone force-fed him?"

"In a word? Yes. With the intention of killing him."

Prowl swapped a look with Jazz. "It looks like we've just added a murder investigation to the list."

0o0o0o0

The station labs were the usual blur of quiet activity, when they got back – everyone was working busily and quietly, little blots of labcoat and protective safety-wear.

The helicopter met them by the door. "Thought you probably ought to be introduced, if you're going to be with us for a while," Nightsun explained, with a half smile. "In particular, to the current source of all knowledge on all things Blue. This," he gestured with an arm to one of the hurrying blots of lab-jacket, which ducked under his arm and scuttled to the closest bench to put down an armful of reagents, "is Calibrator. We've been, ah, 'borrowing her' from Codustral for a little while." He smiled, half-heartedly. "Contract chemist, runs the labs. I'll leave you in her more than capable hands for a while, she can fill you in."

Calibrator was a small dark femme, swamped by her oversized white protective gown, with large green magnifying optics and a dozen inbuilt connectors to port into analytical equipment. She thrust out one hand, which was protected by a luridly-coloured spray-on polymer glove and covered in analytical reagents, thought better of it and offered her other hand, which was equally covered, then smiled awkwardly and took both hands back. "I hope you won't be too offended if I don't shake your hands, sirs," she apologised. "No telling what these chemicals will do if you get it on you… yes, er, well. From the top, yes? Do you know a lot about the narcotic?" She moved back to the bench, wiping reagents off her hands on an old rag in her bulging pockets. "Appearance, properties, that sort of thing?"

"We know a little." Jazz followed her to her workstation. "The very, very basics!"

"In that case, you don't know an awful lot less than we do!" the chemist admitted, with a lopsided half-smile. "We're not sure of the chemical makeup or even _exactly _what it's supposed to do, just that on the whole it's addictive, and as a consequence of that, destructive. The one I'm working on is Basic Blue," she gestured to the cube in her workstation – it looked almost identical to normal energon, except for the vague, indistinct blue facets in it. "Most of the supply chain consists of this one."

"It doesn't look like I expected it to," Jazz confessed. It looked misleadingly _normal_. "I was kind of expecting it to look, you know… actually _blue_."

"And that is _exactly_ how most machines are getting sucked in," Calibrator agreed. "It's usually a case of 'Oh it's not too bad, I'll be safe having just one, to see what the fuss is about, then I can stop if I don't like it, because I'm not so weak-willed as all those other addicted machines.' By which time, they're hooked." She set the reagent probe into the cube, and flicked a button, set a program running. "To be honest, Basic is pretty mild stuff. It's addictive, but fairly harmless. Easily gets slipped in with normal supplies. We were figuring that some individuals might not even realise they've had it until it's too late."

The two Autobots exchanged looks.

"How frequently do you think the latter happens?" Prowl wondered, out loud.

"Not too often, from what we can tell," Calibrator admitted. "For all their bluster, the Blue outfit seems pretty small-scale. They don't have the output to push supplies onto people who don't actually _want _to try it. Anyway. There's another couple of variants we've managed to get samples of – Blue Ruin is one, Blue Prophet another. Both mess with your perceptions, make you see things that aren't there, that sort of thing. We're not sure exactly what makes them different, just yet. Probably just more mutant viral types." Calibrator spread her hands. "They're supposedly more _potent_, which agrees with what the streets are saying. Blue Ruin is most popular." She pulled a face. "Ruin and Prophet both _are_ blue in colour!"

She ducked down to a cupboard for a moment. "And this last," she gingerly brought out a tiny cube of violent cobalt, sizzling in the tongs as if it were boiling, "and by far the most potent… is the infamous 'Screaming Blue'. Supposedly they named it after the Second in Command of the Decepticons, 'cause rumour has it this is what killed him. Nasty stuff."

"Now _that _looks like I expected," Jazz commented, dryly, watching as the cube fizzed and sparked like an electrical version of those unholy carbonated beverages humans liked.

"I didn't realise there'd been any narcotics involvement in his death," Prowl added, softly. "He just ran into three groundling thugs, who broke him up just like Megatron used to. He was too inebriated to find his way home and bled out in an alleyway."

Calibrator spread her hands, in a shrug. "Maybe. That's the official line, at least. The scuttlebutt has it that he was high on Blue, hence the aberrant behaviour. It _could_ just be a rumour, sure, but, ah… our 'supplier' is pretty confident of his facts."

"Speaking of which, where _do_ you get your samples from?"

"Most of the test samples come from the hospitals," she explained. "They confiscate any they find, and it gets sent to the police department. We've got plenty to experiment on. But the exemplars?" She gestured to the cupboard holding the selection of cubes, and averted her gaze, sadly. "There's no other way of keeping up to date than going to the streets to get them. We buy direct from the dealers."

"Isn't that just a smidgen dangerous?!"

"These _are_ pretty desperate times. We have to get it from somewhere."

Prowl tapped his chin, thoughtfully. "Correct me if I've got the wrong idea, but if you're actually in contact with the dealers, why have arrests proved so difficult to make?"

"We've never been able to make contact with the primary dealership," Calibrator replied, ruefully. "Only ever the minor suppliers, no matter how hard we try." She pulled a face. "Unlike your pair of Decepticons. If the rumour mill is anything to go by, they were _streets_ ahead of us before you arrested them."

0o0o0o0

"You know, I don't think he's gonna tell us much," Jazz commented, watching the recharging flier while Prowl deactivated the bars. "Even when he's awake again."

"Well, it's only fair to give him benefit of the doubt," Prowl glanced up, and gave a little shrug, following his friend through the open bars. "Bribery has been known to work on them in the past."

Skywarp was still an untidy heap, but at least he'd turned into an untidy heap all the way on his berth, by now – they didn't have to pick their way over his sprawling legs.

"Hey, you." Prowl prodded a finger into his neck, then jabbed at a wing. "Wake up. We have questions."

"Uh?" Skywarp flickered his optics sleepily up at his wardens, but soon grunted and offlined them again at recognising the pair. "I'm still slagged out. Come back tomorrow." It was an instruction, not a request.

"You're also in no position to be making demands. We only have a few questions."

"What part of 'slag off' did you not get, Autobot? I'm not answering any of your stupid questions."

"We also have energon, but I guess you don't want that either."

Skywarp onlined his optics again, and focused on the cube of purple that was being held in his direction. He tried (without a lot of success) to ignore the way his pumps skipped in his chassis. "Where's the catch?"

"No catch. You refuel, we ask a few questions. Seems like a fair deal, to me."

Skywarp sat and accepted the cube, warily. "What have you put in it?" he grumbled, taking the tiniest sip possible and subjecting it to a barrage of tests for intoxicants.

"Nothing, as I'm sure your own body just confirmed. Just good quality, clean energon. Primus only knows why we're wasting it on scum like you."

That little sip reminded Skywarp of the way his pumps were all whining at him to refuel them. Much to his chagrin, the calm, in-control way he'd planned on slowly consuming the rest of the cube, between insults and half-answers – just to remind the Autobots who they were dealing with, a proud officer in the deadliest squadron in the Decepticon fleet, who didn't need Autobot sympathy or generosity or pity-handouts – turned into big relieved gulps of the precious violet nectar. The two Autobots swapped looks.

"Better?" Prowl asked, once Skywarp had finally emptied the cube, and for once he didn't sound condescending.

The Seeker swallowed his pride and nodded, not meeting either Autobot's gaze. He didn't say thank you, but then they hadn't expected him to.

"Now. Questions!" Jazz reminded him.

"I don't know," Skywarp interrupted, before they got the chance to ask anything.

"What?"

"Whatever you're going to ask me. I don't know."

"But we haven't asked you anything, yet."

"I know," Skywarp smiled, and tried very hard to look like he was being duplicitous, but only succeeded in looking as clueless as he was making out. "I've completely lost any kind of grasp of what's going on. All I know is that you're here, we're here, and everything's gone crazy."

"All right. On your feet," Prowl waved his gun.

"What? Why?" Skywarp folded his arms and stayed sitting, but an undeniable flicker of anxiety went through his optics. It was as f he imagined they were about to march him outside and shoot him in the back of the head.

"We're going to pay your neighbour a visit, now come on," Jazz smiled. "Up!"

Anxiety turned back into suspicion. "Why are we going to see Thundercracker?"

"Well, if you don't know anything, maybe he will."

"So… why am I coming with you? Threatening _me _to bribe _him _won't work."

"Just get on your feet, Skywarp," Prowl instructed, tiredly. "We don't have all vorn to spend playing mind games with you."

In the adjoining cell, Thundercracker was deep in recharge, half off his berth, arm trailing out across his wing and his head dangling precariously back, vocaliser buzzing softly.

Skywarp leaned down very close to his audio vent and said, loudly, "TC?"

Thundercracker gave a little start and blinked up at him, wincing and managing to get his head back on the berth, then apparently decided there was no way Skywarp could actually be in his cell with him, and groaned and pushed him away. "You're just a figment of my burned-out central processor," he groused, bitterly. "Come back when I've had time to get my energy levels back out of the Pit."

Skywarp was unimpressed – grabbed his wingmate's thrustered feet and hauled him bodily halfway off his berth. Thundercracker gave an involuntary _erp!_ and flailed his arms, managed to catch himself on the edge of his bunk, leaning awkwardly on his wings and a foot or two shy of landing hard on his aft.

"Still think I'm a figment?" Skywarp challenged, grouchily, when the startled crimson optics finally focussed on him, then plonked himself down hard on the end of the long, flat pallet to stop his friend laying back down. "We've got visitors, and I'm no _way_ dealing with these two on my own, so you better freaking wake up properly."

Finally noticing the Autobots, Thundercracker affected a half-hearted glower, and planted his aft onto his bunk next to Skywarp, but in spite of his valiant efforts at looking dangerous and belligerent he looked too _tired_ to do much else. "Should have known they'd be down eventually," he growled to Skywarp, as if they weren't there. "What do they want?"

"Breakfast," Jazz said, brightly, offering a cube.

"What?-… Oh!" Thundercracker showed none of Skywarp's initial reticence – his scowl fell off, his optics brightened, and he accepted the energon as though it were the most precious thing on the planet. He all but _inhaled_ the whole cube without even pausing to purge the vapours that hung around in his system, which made him splutter, feebly.

"Haven't actually refuelled in orns," he admitted, once he'd got control back over his vocaliser, at Skywarp's dirty look.

"What about all that energon you said we had-" Skywarp challenged.

"You were doing all the fetching and carrying and getting-beaten-to-slag, I figured you needed it more."

"Of all the Primus-damned stupid-" In spite of his words, Skywarp sounded a _tiny_ bit touched by the thought. "So much for 'rationing'!"

"It was rationing!" Thundercracker argued, indignantly. "It was going to the mech who needed it most."

"All right, all right," Prowl interrupted. "We didn't drag your carcass in here for you to just chatter, Skywarp." He folded his arms. "We want to know everything _you_ know."

"That shouldn't take long," Thundercracker snorted. "We pretty much know slag all."

Prowl decided to call their bluff, if he could. "We particularly need to know about Screaming Blue," he said, grimly. "What is it, where did you get it from, and what purpose could it possibly serve the Decepticons?"

The two Seekers gave him a collectively blank stare.

"A blue what? And why is it screaming?" Skywarp asked, and sounded genuinely clueless. He'd slumped forwards, and had his chin propped in his hands, elbows on knees. "Oh, hang on, wait. Are you talking about that… that drug stuff? I thought it was just 'Blue'. What does sound have to do with it?"

"Screaming Blue," Prowl elaborated, quietly, "was so named, if you believe the rumours, because it was what your illustrious leader was high on when he was killed. So I repeat. What, if anything, does it have to do with you two?"

The two Decepticons swapped dirty looks. "I hadn't heard _that_ story," Thundercracker admitted, darkly. "I knew they were using his murder to sell their product, but that was about it."

"We did kinda suspect they'd drugged him," Skywarp added, moodily, not sitting up. "We just didn't have anything conclusive to go on." His voice became a little softer. "Kinda moot, now, anyway."

"So let me get this straight. You're telling us that all this…" Jazz waved a hand as if to encompass the whole district. "All the blue, the riots, the attempted murders… You're trying to tell us _you_ just happen to be here completely coincidentally?"

Thundercracker smiled exhaustedly. "Yeah. I know you're never going to believe us, but we are genuinely here completely coincidentally."

"We didn't have anything to do with it – didn't even know it existed – until they got Screamer involved," Skywarp confirmed, with a weary headshake. "You, uh…" he winced, "probably saw the footage of what happened to him."

Prowl nodded, solemnly. "We saw," he accepted, quietly, without making them go into too much depth. "So why are you still here? Your leader is out of the picture, why not just go back to Megatron?"

"I don't know what Optimus Prime thinks about it, but Megatron doesn't look too kindly on mutineers," Thundercracker snorted. "We came here in the first place because Starscream fell out with him, again." He glared, softly. "Turns out the slagger was just framing all three of us."

"We'd not been here very long when things just… blew up on us. We stayed mostly just to look for Starscream," Skywarp added. "To start with, anyway. Now we've got matters to take up with the Blue pushers."

Jazz gave a genuinely sympathetic look. "You _did_ know he was, ah… that is-" He stumbled over the words. _Do they not know he's dead?_

"Oh, we knew he wasn't in best shape," Thundercracker agreed, dryly, then added, more seriously; "we've been trying to find his body, if you must know. Maybe it's just one of those morbid quirks of Decepticon programming. We just…" He shrugged, awkwardly. "We wanted to know we could finally stop looking for him."

"They never actually found the body, you know," Jazz reminded them, lifting a finger. "There was just a puddle of crystallised fluids in the alleyway. So there, ah… might still be hope. For you." _What in Primus name am I saying? Hope that Starscream __didn't__ finally bite the big one?_

"They wouldn't have found him there," a flicker of something indefinable brightened Skywarp's crimson gaze, and he sat up and folded his arms, awkwardly. "They weren't looking in the right place."

"You know something we don't, Skywarp?"

"I know he's dead," Skywarp made a face, refused to meet their gaze. "Because I killed him."

The two Autobots exchanged worried glances, and Thundercracker gave Skywarp a friendly elbow.

"Let's not get bogged down in that again, eh, Warp?" the blue Seeker suggested, quietly.

"What do you mean, _you _killed him?" Jazz cut in, worriedly.

Thundercracker gave him a dirty look. "You keep your snout out of things that don't concern you, Autobot-"

"What I _mean_ is I was too stupid to stay online, he staggered off, and got abducted by some crazy giant psychopath with a penchant for broken-up mechs, all right?" Skywarp interrupted, angrily. "He's probably in some basement somewhere, in lots of teeny tiny bits, and if I'd not let myself lapse into recharge, all three of us would still be together, and dealing out a little friendly Decepticon reminder of why no stupid narcotic is _ever _going to take our place!"

There was a startled lull in conversation – even Thundercracker hadn't been quite prepared for his wingmate's outburst.

"Sirs?" a voice asked, from the doorway. They turned to find Nightsun, who smiled, apologetically. "Sorry to interrupt; Cali said she thought you two were down here. Hardline wants to call a meeting, pool what we know so far."

"I think we're just about finished here, right, Jazz?" Prowl agreed.

"Almost," Jazz nodded, and glanced down at the two Seekers, who were muttering unintelligibly to each other again. "Come on, you two," he prodded. "We know you were involved in a street brawl a few orns ago, and we're suspecting it was with some of the Blue pushers. Just confirm it for us, and we'll leave you in peace."

A little more hushed muttering passed between the two fliers.

"We got as far as finding one of the major dealers," Thundercracker explained, at last, reluctantly. "We were going to interrogate him, but Warp got a bit overexcited and jumped him before I got there."

"Whoa, whoa, wait a second-!" Nightsun cut in, waving his hands. "You actually _found _one of the major players? And… what, you killed him, or something…?!"

"Don't be stupid," Skywarp scoffed. "Your lot showed up and he escaped, long before we managed to get that far. I just," he looked away, modestly, "kicked him around a bit."

Nightsun smiled, enviously. "They've got further than we've managed to," he admitted, and glanced at the two Seekers. "You've got a description of him, right?"

"I'll describe all three of the slaggers, if you want," Skywarp shrugged, tiredly. "Bring me the artist and you'll have your wanted posters by the end of the orn."

"We didn't have a basic description. We weren't even entirely sure how many of them there were," Nightsun admitted to Prowl, once he was out of audio range, as the two headed up to Hardline's debriefing, leaving Jazz to finish grilling the tired Seekers for any remaining information. "Those two somehow managed to ID all three of them."

"You're being far too helpful," Jazz commented, thoughtfully, watching Skywarp. "Are you not feeling well?"

Skywarp pulled a face. "Well, it's not as if we're going to get first dibs at killing the fragger, is it, now you have us banged up in here," he groused. "We might as well help you catch him. With any luck you'll put him in the next-door cell and we can put the boot in that way."

"It's that important to you?"

"Wouldn't _you_ go on whatever the Autobot equivalent of a murderous rampage is if someone did Prowl in?" Thundercracker countered. "He _owes_ us. Big time."

"So, ah, what's with the, er-…" Jazz wiggled a finger in an approximate point at where an insignia would be, if he had wings. "Don't tell me you two have actually gone straight, after all these millennia."

There were snerks of amusement that proved 'no'.

"CSIs Skywarp and Thundercracker, at your service," Thundercracker quipped, dryly, and elbowed his wingmate. "His idea. He somehow thought we – as in, the most notorious fliers to have ever patrolled Cybertron's airspace – could actually successfully go incognito just by slapping a bit of paint over our insignia."

"It worked for a while!" Skywarp argued.

"They didn't need to know who we were to happily kick him out of the hospital, though."

"Psh. It was only after _you_ took things up with the _Sphere_'s editor that they stopped selling us energon, _remember_? I told you that you should have just threatened him verbally."

There was a little more jostling of wings, but it seemed friendly rather than argumentative.

"Now… all right. Just hear me out before you swear, laugh, or shout rude things," Jazz lifted his hands. "I know it's… well, kinda beyond the pale, most of the time. But. I wondered if the pair of you had any immediate plans for the future."

Thundercracker arched an optic ridge, and Skywarp failed at hiding a smirk.

"Let me guess. You're asking us to join your raggedy bunch," Thundercracker guessed.

"Because we're just _that damn good_," Skywarp added.

Jazz grinned, wryly. "Can't hide much from you two brilliant detectives, huh?" he replied, amusedly, already retreating to the doorway. "Yeah. If you want to. Otherwise you get to enjoy each others' company for a _whoooole_ lot longer. We squared it up with the Superintendent, and he's happy to make some allowances for you, provided you don't go causing too much trouble. The more eyes are looking, the more likely we'll be to catch 'em. I'll even let you have 'first dibs' on the ringleader, if you want it."

"Do we have to answer now?" Skywarp made a face.

"Nah. Whenever you're ready," Jazz allowed, re-engaging the bars. "Just shout if you want to talk. There's usually someone within yelling distance."

"This is cosy," Skywarp said, after Jazz's footsteps had finally faded out, and slumped sideways, letting his head resting on the point of Thundercracker's shoulder.

"Do you mind?" Thundercracker grumbled, quietly.

"Nope," Skywarp shook his head. "I'm still tired."

"So am I. Get your head off me."

Skywarp grinned and snuggled closer, and a black hand planted square down on his faceplates and shoved him off backwards.


	14. Chapter 14

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Fourteen**

**Disclaimer:** As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. (...Except where they're obviously OCs, which Hasbro would be silly to want to claim.)

**A/N: **I humbly apologise for the way this chapter went a little OC-centric - it was a bit of a neccessity, as I'm setting things up for later.

To those interested folk, I've got the bones of a drawing of some of my other characters in progress on my Livejournal.

keaalu dot livejournal dot com slash 178278 dot html (I'm loving Boxer's hat.) I've started to put the chapters up there, as well - they're easier to edit for typos. :\

Thanks again to those wonderful folk out in the wilds of the internet for taking time to review. :) You have no idea how much I've kept my focus because I know people are reading this. ;)

* * *

Figuring mutual respect was going to be something of a necessity if they were actually going to cope with working with each other, the Autobots had left the auditory surveillance feeds turned off while the Seekers made up their minds. There ensued a fair deal of silent arm-waving and gesticulating on the video feeds, but the pair eventually settled again. Sharing a recharge point looked like it was a logistical impossibility, even if the connectors were available – there was just too much wing area for them to happily cohabit.

By the time the Autobots decided to go and see if the Decepticons had made up their minds, a few cycles later, Thundercracker was awake and sitting with his knees pulled up at the end of the cell, watching the entrance. He gave the two Autobots a long-suffering look as they released the field, and glanced meaningfully at Skywarp. The purple Seeker had commandeered the berth, although he was most of the way _off_ it again – one arm and one leg trailing down off the side to the floor, mouth open, optics offline, oblivious.

"You two made your mind up, I guess?" Jazz asked, finally taking his amused gaze away from the sprawling purple Seeker and returning it to the blue one.

"One question. Do I have to share a berth with him?" Thundercracker jerked a thumb at his wingmate.

"Not unless you want to," Jazz grinned. "I imagine the femmes wouldn't mind seeing that."

Thundercracker made a face and elected not to comment on that.

"Does he do anything tidily?" Prowl wondered, out loud.

"Not often," Thundercracker confirmed, levering himself to his feet, connectors clicking softly. He stretched his back, flexed his shoulders deeply, and winced. "Wake up, Warp."

Skywarp grunted and flickered his optics, and just stared at Thundercracker's feet for a while. "Nah."

"Okay, fair enough. You can stay in the cell," Thundercracker patted his helm. "_I'm _gonna go find a better recharge berth."

That woke him up a little better. "Unh," Skywarp rolled bodily off the berth, and after a moment of clawing for support off Thundercracker's legs, who looked somewhat discomfited at the public mauling, tottered up off his knees and to his feet. "That shouldn't be difficult. _Anything_'s gotta be better than _this_ slab of old granite."

"…says the mech who _didn't_ just spend all night on the floor."

"All right, all right," Prowl interrupted. "Let's maintain a modicum of focus, shall we?" He gave a meaningful look to Thundercracker. "I think you had an answer for us."

There was a moment of hesitation – not unexpected, given the gravity of the situation – and shared crimson glances, and Skywarp nodded.

"We discussed it last night. We decided, ah… we're with you," Thundercracker confirmed, quietly. "For now."

"Just understand this, Autobot," Skywarp added, pushing in front. "We're not in it for you, for glory, for Cybertron, for any namby-pamby idealistic Autobot claptrap." He folded his arms and set his jaw, wearing that same odd overprotective look he'd had when the pair of them had been arrested. "We're in it for Starscream. If it _was _that Pit-brewed purge-fluid that killed him… Well, I know _I'm_ gonna have 'words' with whoever designed the stuff."

"Consider us 'Neutrals with an Agenda', for now," Thundercracker offered, and actually managed a small smile. "Once it's over, we're back on opposite sides of the fence. But until we've got to the bottom of it?" He offered a hand. "Truce?"

"Can't say much fairer than that," Jazz grinned, and accepted the handshake. "I'd far rather you two be working _with_ us than taking potshots at us."

"Oh, I make no guarantees we won't shoot at you," Skywarp corrected, with a well-practised innocent smile. "We'll just be less obvious about it when we do."

"Ha, now _that_ is the Skywarp I remember," Jazz laughed, and commented, to Thundercracker; "I was beginning to wonder if you hadn't had him replaced with a better-behaved clone."

"Your standards for good behaviour aren't that high, are they?" Thundercracker drawled.

"Eh, just because I'm an Autobot it doesn't mean my friends and relations aren't just as disorganised and chaotic as Decepticons." Jazz spread his hands, innocently. "We're just more moral about it, right, Prowl?"

"I'm not even going to _attempt _to comment on that," Prowl disagreed. "It would only cause offence, or a ruction if they got wind of it back home." He gave Thundercracker a look. "We'll find you some quarters to bunk in. They won't be too special, probably not up to your usual standard – not used to fliers, here, not many berths have the wing-space – but it'll be a smidgen more cosy than the cell block."

0o0o0o0

As they'd been warned, the quarters weren't the best quality – four berths, laid out as two sets of bunks in large alcoves in the walls, with a small computer station and chair at the far end and a single-occupant bathing facility through a door to the right. Neither Seeker was particularly bothered, though – compared to the old warehouse, it was positively _palatial_.

Skywarp gave a sigh of pleasure and slumped immediately to the forgiving memory-foam surface of the lowest bunk on the left-hand side – all were _enormous _pieces of furniture, designed for heavy emergency troops bigger even than the giant Boxer, and it made the lightly-built flier look like a sparkling snoozing in his creator's berth, but it was the only room with enough space for their wings. For his part, Thundercracker was already investigating the washracks, and making pleased noises at the fact there were even a couple of brushes, jammed into a rack next to the mirror.

"I never realised I'd taken being _clean _so much for granted," Thundercracker observed, several breems later, once he was content he'd finally removed every last trace of ground-in dirt. He sat on the berth opposite his wingmate, cloth in hand, fastidiously buffing his fuselage until the shine came up.

Skywarp made a derisory sound, left his optics offline. "Cleanliness is over-rated."

"Just because _you_ don't mind being a dust-bucket doesn't mean we're _all_ happy wallowing in our own grime," Thundercracker flicked at him with the cloth.

"No-o, I didn't say that. I just meant…" Skywarp wriggled and stretched, like an ungodly huge winged feline. "Mmmh, I'd forgotten how cosy a proper berth could be. I can get clean later."

0o0o0o0

"They've probably got us bugged, you know," the little surveillance speaker in the monitor room said, in Skywarp's voice.

Up in the monitor room, Jazz and Prowl exchanged semi-guilty looks.

"Oh, indubitably," came Thundercracker's deeper comment.

"Indowhatibly?"

"Goes without saying," Thundercracker made a noise. "Not as if we've got anything worth spying on, is it?"

There was a breem or two of blissful silence before Skywarp spoke up again – more softly than usual.

"…reckon they'll let us keep looking for Screamer?"

"Why would they do _that_, Warp? They've used his death to get us on board, they're hardly going to let us go find him and negate the agreement."

"Ah, you never know. He'd be _crazy _pissed off with the Blue outfit if he knew what they were doing in his name. He might even have joined the fun."

Thundercracker laughed. "You'd know things had got pretty dire if _he_ joined the party."

There was a pause.

"I don't like not knowing," Skywarp admitted. "If we could find the… _bits_… whatever's left…" he stumbled over the distasteful idea. "I think I'd be… not happier, but… you know. Wouldn't be thinking about what might be happening to him, the whole time."

"I know what you mean," Thundercracker agreed. "I'd like a bit of closure, too. Even if it was just proof he was-… you know…"

Politely, Prowl reached forwards, and turned the feed off. Even this pair of troublemakers deserved a little privacy every now and then. "So it's official?" he commented, now silence had fallen. "We're trusting this pair? With a history like ours?"

"We could do with a couple of eyes in the sky," Jazz reminded him. "Nightsun's _good_, but – much as it pains me to admit it – these two are _better_. Besides," he spread his hands. "It's personal, to them. We're just giving them the opportunity and the facilities to finish what they'd already started."

0o0o0o0

After the processor-freezing boredom that street patrols and paperwork used to induce, Pulsar was astonished that she was so eagerly anticipating getting _back_ on patrol so soon. It had been a palpable relief when the call finally went out that she could get out on duty, and she'd already been out through the doors before she'd even fully digested her route, dumping co-ordinates straight into her positioning and just following them.

She was feeling particularly irritable, right now. Not only was there that damned Seeker _still_ back at Forceps', now that _other _pair were in the frame, back at the station. She couldn't escape them _anywhere_, now! She revved her engines, bitterly, and took a corner fast enough that she was almost horizontal, her gravity emitters flicking up loose detritus.

The two fliers had needed no introduction, of course, but Hardline had called a meeting and laid down some ground rules for everyone to abide by, anyway. The two Decepticons were to be considered Neutral, for now, and treated accordingly – no taunts, no backbiting, no goading the fliers into arguments, no sniping about their 'career choices'. The same rules had apparently been given to the two Seekers, with which they had (grudgingly) agreed to comply – although for them it was a choice between agreement and the brig, so it hadn't taken much thought, and whether they actually stuck to the rules would be anyone's guess. In her not-so-humble opinion, they seemed incapable of following even simple instructions without causing a ruckus.

The opinion among the upper echelons of the police force was that the pair of fliers would be a useful addition to the war on Blue. And… granted, yes, they had their useful attributes, she'd give them that much – strong fliers, fast, powerful, and probably pretty accurate when it came to shooting… But it wasn't as if they were lacking in those skills to start with. Nightsun and his fellow helicopters were all quick and proficient in the air, there were plenty of highly accurate marksbots on the force (herself included), and both Hardline and Boxer vastly outstripped the spindly fliers when it came to the power-weight ratio. The only thing the police force had been actually _lacking_ was a teleporter, and she had to wonder exactly how useful _he_ would prove to be, given that he seemed about as sharp as a lump of molten tin.

Most of the police grumblings had died down once the terrible two had actually applied themselves to their allotted tasks with the minimum of fuss. (So she couldn't even slag them off for being useless layabouts. Fraggers.) Piqued, she'd already decided not to tell Forceps about them, just yet. Let them wallow in pity for a little longer. Serve them right. They didn't deserve to know, just yet. Besides, they'd probably take to their heels and decide not to help out any more, if they and their commander were reunited. Better keep them in the dark and on-board.

It was nice to get out on the chilly streets, at least. Helped blow out a little of the anger that flickered like smouldering filings in her casings. It was such a familiar old route that she could very nearly work it on autopilot – down the quiet high-street and then in a slow grid crosswise, taking in the long-deserted shopping precinct and trading hub, the quiet private homes with their murmuring occupants, empty offices and the doctor's surgery, once across the front of the hospital, down past a line of empty tower blocks, then back past the shops and the… deserted… _Flywheel_…

…there was a light on inside. A thin rind of pale yellow showed around the edges of the window-boards. She skidded to a halt, almost toppling right over, then darted into the shadows, transforming and ducking down behind a long un-emptied refuse cart, dimming her optics to their lowest functional level.

There was someone _in there_! She couldn't believe how _brazen_ it was. Their analysts had stated – _categorically_ – that the chances of anyone actually returning to the _Flywheel_, now it was a known haunt of the Blue loyalists, were so minimal they were all but nonexistent.

Although it probably wasn't the loyalists at all, she told herself. No-one was that _stupid_. There were remote surveillance cameras in place all over the neighbourhood. As soon as she got back, she'd check the vid-feeds, and tell the Super. They'd have proof, and could confirm identity, and get a chance to catch the primary dealers in the act, all in one move! Just… what if they were gone by the time she got back? If she had her chance, and failed to take it?

He first thought was _I bet Skywarp could get me in there __completely__ unnoticed_.

Her second thought was one of extreme irritation that her first thought had been of that noisy, overbearing thug she'd been forced to work with. _Have to get Sepp to check _my_ circuits, next time I see her._

She felt torn. What did she do? It was way too risky to get any closer, even just to sneak a quick peek around the window boards. If the Seekers were right, two of the principals were _huge_, on a par with Hardline himself. Being fast wouldn't help one _iota_ if they got hold of her.

_Got to call for backup_, she realised, already activating her radio and pinging for a response. Odd, the system was non-responsive – maybe she was out of range. She'd have to move out to a new area and see if she could get pickup. _Could just be a couple of Empties, using the place now no-one else is, but what if it's not? If it's loyalists, we could arrest them _now_! Then we wouldn't _need _those damned fliers any more. Better I call the squad out and have to apologise for a false alarm than _not_ call them out and end up in pieces scattered across the district-_

"Well well, what _have _we got here?" a voice asked, from behind her, almost making her spark jump clean out of her chest. A sibilant, amused voice. "_Sneaky_ little Policebot!"

When the hands grabbed her, the alarmed shriek that left her vocaliser was probably not the most appropriate or impressive noise an Autobot police officer had ever made.

0o0o0o0

Siphon glanced out into the dark streets and clucked an amused little chuckle. "Sounds like Deuce finally found himself something to keep his fingers busy."

Fatigue grunted, unimpressed. He'd had a sour batch of Prophet, and was particularly short and moody because of it. "So long as he stops making such an aft of himself, he can play all he likes with what he likes. Swear, if the Boss doesn't kill 'im one day, _I_ will."

"You say that _every _time."

"Yeah, well this time I _mean_ it."

"…You say _that_ every time, too."

"Tell you what, Tubes," Fatigue looked up, at last. "_You _stop correcting me, and _I_ won't punch your lights out. Fair deal?"

"Um, ye-es, that's a pretty fair trade." Siphon sat on his hands and went quiet.

Fatigue grunted and went back to his reading.

The peace lasted for (barely) a fraction of a breem – the time it took for Deuce to wrestle his prize back to base. Fatigue was of course unimpressed – Deuce was bipolar enough when he _hadn't_ been hitting the Blue Ruin. Bored and high, he became unbearable.

"Put her down, Deuce," the big male groused. "I know you're in that mood where you can't seem to run down and offline, but you can't go out picking up prostitute-…" His words tailed off as he saw exactly _what_ was struggling and kicking in his friend's arms. "Aw, _slag_ no. What the Pit are you playing at, you fragging moron? _A police officer?_ Can't you keep your hands in your pockets for once?!"

Deuce giggled and tightened his grip. It looked almost like he was trying to keep a hold of an oversized silver crane-fly. "Prostitutes got boring," he explained, licking up the side of her throat and snickering as the kicks got wilder. She was arching her back away from him, clawing frantically at the hand clamped over her mouth, but only succeeded in drawing electric yellow finger-gouges in his sullen dark blue enamel, which amused him more than anything. Pathetic muffled little noises emerged around his fingertips. "This little firecracker looks _far_ more interesting."

"Right, and what are you gonna do with her _after_ you're done playing?" Siphon challenged. "'Cause she ain't the sort you can just dump back on the streets, like you did the others. You're gonna have to enforce her silence some other way, and I sure as Pit ain't gonna help you dismantle her-"

"You know, we _could_ use the little busybody," Fatigue interrupted, thoughtfully, watching Deuce try to wrestle the femme into a slightly more subdued position. "Boss wanted more contacts, right?"

"Oh right, because she wouldn't run _straight _to _her_ commander," Siphon snorted, and folded his arms.

"Not if we got her on the books before we let her go," Fatigue smiled. "Let me just grab hold, Siphon, then you can work your magic."

"Hey! Back off," Deuce growled, snarling at Fatigue. "She's _mine_, go get your own."

Fatigue gave him a look. "Either you can get out of the way for a minute, or we can off her now and be done with it," he growled. "Dragging the enemy into our little den of iniquity was one of your more moronic plans, and now we've gotta take steps to neutralise her."

"What do you mean, neutralise?!" Pulsar squawked, the instant Deuce sulkily relinquished his hold to Fatigue. "You're not going to get me to take any of that… that _stuff_! I won't just stand here and let you poison me-!"

"Just what I had expected you to say, Police," Fatigue purred, grasping both skinny wrists in one massive fist. "That's all right. We don't want your permission, or your agreement. We'll just… persuade you in a different way."

He cupped one broad hand around under her chin, and _pinched_ carefully at the points of her jaw. She jerked in pain, flinched from him, stamped ineffectually on his foot and wrothe like an eel in his grasp, but Fatigue just chuckled and held on, carefully squeezing and wiggling his huge fingers until the fight finally went out of her and she sagged in his grasp, whimpering, opening her mouth to relieve the worst of the flaring pain in the joints.

"There's a good femme, Sweets," Siphon cooed, almost affectionately, brushed his fingertips over her nose. "Now here's your reward."

She shook her head, but was woefully outclassed – the spidery little mech got his funnel between her lips, ignoring the way she squirmed and kicked at him.

Blue Ruin scalded like molten metal down her main intake and she bucked violently in an effort to get away from it. Fatigue kept his grip, pulling hard on her wrists and crushing her tight against his broad chest, but even he looked unprepared for how energetic she was in her effort to escape it – there was a low _click_ as an actuator in her hip gave out, but it didn't calm the thrashing.

After a moment or two, Siphon backed off, and nodded. Fatigue relaxed his grip and she lurched free of his fingers, staggered a few footsteps on legs that weren't just bandy because of a damaged hip, before collapsing against the wall. Her pumps made dull grinding, retching noises for a moment or two, but the urge to purge her tanks passed fairly quickly. She pushed off the wall in an effort to walk, but just tripped over her own feet, landed in a sprawl on her front.

Gentle fingers peeled her up off the grimy floor, and helped her upright. She sat and reeled, for a little while, trying to stop the room rotating in front of her. "What is-… what-…?"

Deuce sat opposite her and matched the quirk of her head, curiously. "What is what?"

"What is-…" The urge to snigger at him rose in the back of her mind. He looked so stupid, head canted over to match the way she was swaying. "I don't… how did this…"

He grinned at her. "Like it?"

Pulsar looked down at her hands, and considered the question. Thinking was getting kinda hard, right now. Far too much effort. She felt light-headed, nicely over-energised. "I… yes?" What in Primus name was all the fuss about? This wasn't at all bad.

He caught her as she canted slowly over to the side again. "Steady there, femme. Don't want to go splat on that pretty face again."

She slumped against him, and snorted amusedly. "Can't sit up."

"That's just the fractal integrating into your systems. You'll get your balance back soon enough."

"Who needs balance?" she challenged, and flopped into his lap. "I'll just… lay here."

Deuce smiled, triumphantly, and pinged at her antennae. "I'm good with that."

Fatigue watched them canoodling for a moment or two, and cast his gaze skywards.

"Okay, so now what are we gonna do with her?" Siphon wondered, pulling a face. "Low ranking coppers have only got so much power and influence, you know. Unless you want to use her to deliver a little Ruin to the doors of her Superintendent." He shrugged. "I guess that could work, right?"

"I was thinking more of them dopey Seekers we were trying to get in contact with," Fatigue disagreed. "Got themselves arrested, right?"

"Right," Siphon nodded. "Where you leading this?"

"Well, what if we, ah… get her to arrange a jailbreak of some sort?" He smirked. "Keeps _us_ out of the firing line, right? She's allowed in there 'cause she works in there. And getting them _out _might be enough to get the dappy fliers on-board with us."

"Won't work," Pulsar interrupted, sleepily, from Deuce's lap. "They're working with us police already. Not happy with you guys. You fragged up their boss, and they want you dead."

Fatigue pulled a face. "Psh. Got to be pretty desperate if there's Decepticons actually working _with_ Autobots, not shooting Pit out of 'em."

Pulsar rapidly lost track of the conversation, after that. Speaking seemed irrelevant. Basking in this new flood of alien sensations was faar more important.

0o0o0o0

When she finally came back to her senses and onlined, the sullen evening light had been replaced by the usual stronger daytime ambience. _Unh, my head._ She felt wobbly, gyros only coming back online slowly, and her coolant lines had all over-pressurised.

The events of the previous evening weren't in particularly good focus, but they were clear enough to be nauseating. Blue. Oh Primus damn it to the Pit, she'd had _Blue_. They said just once was enough to get a machine hopelessly addicted. Enough to leave someone completely devoted, unable to work without regular supplies-

No. No, she was stronger than this! She didn't need it. That little quarter-tank of noxious cobalt chemical wasn't enough to cause her downfall. She'd fight through it, reset all her wonky systems, purge herself clean.

"Hello there, sleepy-head," a voice cooed, and she flinched. It was the delivery truck, in whose lap she seemed to still be laying.

She made a noise of despair and rolled away from him, prompting a little snerk of amusement.

"All right, femme," Fatigue growled, pulling her roughly back to her feet. She stood with her feet splayed for balance, canted over on her good side, and stared through him for a moment before her optics focused again. "We're gonna make you a deal."

"I don't do deals with scum like you," she retorted, trying to remain calm, but everything had now switched over to fight or flight. She found herself trembling through how _hard_ her pumps were working to ensure she was as primed to run as possible.

"Aw, but we had _fun_, last night," Deuce murmured, grasping at her upper arms and nuzzling at the side of her neck, and snickering into her plating as she _cringed_ away from him.

"Get off-" She squirmed, angrily, and had slipped one arm free and almost made good her escape before Siphon caught her other arm. "Get _off_! I have no desire to do _anything_ you three _freaks_ want me to do. I'm going back to base and I'm going to make _sure_ my superiors know you're still hiding out, here…!"

"But you won't get any more nice Blue, if you hand us over," Fatigue reminded, with a smile. "Like I said, we're going to do a deal, Policebot. You work with _us_, and we'll make sure you get enough of the product to keep you functioning. We don't want a lot – just a little information. A little sabotage. Just little things. Right?"

"…No, I can't just-"

"Look, Sweets," Fatigue flicked a giant finger under her chin, irritably. "You ain't got a whole lot of choice in the matter. The only way you get out of this is _with_ _us_, or _dead_. You got that?"

She closed her mouth with a little _snap_, and pouted, but didn't argue. _Have to get out of this. Have to get out, __now__. Have to look compliant, and…-_

She waited until their attention was at its lowest ebb before putting her plan into action. She'd stopped struggling, stopped trying to pry her arms away from their grip, and relaxed her back into a curve, sagging as if in defeat. She reduced her auditory sensitivity to its lowest effective level, and screened off her optics. Wouldn't do to incapacitate _herself _in the process.

She circulated a brief intake of cool air through her system, checked her thrusters were primed, all her fuel-lines were flush with fresh energon for the best possible getaway, then collected her nerves…

It was like the air was physically _exploding _when she pulsed her siren at its loudest setting, accompanying it with an electric heartbeat of blinding blue light from her sidelights. She was naturally _loud_, but in this confined space it was like someone had let off a sonic grenade.

The crash of noise even woke Fatigue out of his torpor. Deuce dropped her like she was hot, and fell away from her with a cry of startled alarm. Siphon managed to keep his grip, but it was tenuous, and she stamped the sharp, gravity-emitter-heeled foot of her good leg into his knee. The instant he dropped her, with a howl of invective, clutching at his injured leg, she fled – skidded lopsidedly out of the side doorway, transformed, and was gone.

"Ohhh that Pit-spawned little glitch," Siphon ranted around his curses, limping badly on his injured knee – Pulsar's kick had wrenched the joint in the direction it wasn't supposed to go, and shattered a servo. "I'll catch her and by _Primus_ will she ever regret the day she did that-!"

"Oh, I don't think you'll have to exert yourself too much, Siphon," Fatigue disagreed, grinning, watching the departing glitter of pale armour in the street outside. "We'll let her come back all of her own accord."

"You think she'll come back?" Siphon pulled a face. "I know Deuce thinks he's quite the lady-killer, I doubt she'll come back for _him_."

"Heh, not for _him_, maybe, but for the Blue, definitely. She can't go back empty-handed." The caterpillar tractor shrugged, amusedly. "Whether she was here because she was instructed to or not, she'll still have to explain why she didn't find anything 'cept an addiction. If they know she's addicted, they'll take her off the project for safety's sake."

"Right," Siphon nodded, realising what was meant. "Because she's gotta feed the habit somehow, and she doesn't know anywhere else to buy from…"

0o0o0o0

Pulsar didn't realise how pleased she'd have been to see Forceps' quiet little suburban home, when she pulled exhaustedly up outside and fell her way up the steps to the porch, whining under her breath. Her hip had bloomed into a flare of pain. _Shouldn't have used it while it was injured. _But Forceps would know what to do. She always knew what to do…

Annoyingly, it wasn't Forceps who answered the doorchime. Instead, Scarlet was framed in the doorway, midway through getting the final glossy topcoat to his paintwork, and _Pit_ wasn't he changed from how she'd first seen him. The pathetic, broken, scuffed-up, bent-winged example of a Seeker had fledged into a stunning example of aerial prowess, his bright colours advertising danger, and _dear Primus_, even in spite of the lopsided and unfinished application of colour, he was beautiful. Any doubts about exactly what he had been designed for swiftly evaporated in the face of the twin null-rays finally back on his arms.

He stared haughtily down at her for a moment, then unfolded his arms and cocked his head. "Jealous that I'd been getting all the attention?" he asked, dryly, stepping aside to let her slump through the doorway. "Guess I better go disturb Forceps."

"No need to worry," a familiar voice grumbled from an inner doorway. "I'm not making much headway with my study, anyway. What have you been playing at, Pulse?"

"Hurt my hip," she whined, angrily, clutching at the surgeon's hand and tottering to stand on one leg. "I was attacked on my patrol route." _No need to tell her about the Blue, just yet._ "Outside the _Flywheel_. I was being careful, but he sneaked up on me."

Forceps was careful but not especially gentle as she heaved Pulsar's trembling body up onto the spare berth. "You know, your superiors are your superiors _for a reason_, Pulse," she scolded, irritably. "They don't make the rules just to annoy you."

"I didn't disobey orders," she argued, but didn't have the strength to properly fight her case. She felt exposed, laying on the makeshift repair berth that Scarlet had spent so many orns so patiently laying on. "I was following protocol. They abducted me."

"Why were you even _near_ the _Flywheel_ in the first place?" Forceps gave her a look. "Didn't that alone make you think twice?"

"They rescheduled it into my route. After the ruckus a few orns ago, our analysts decided that the loyalists wouldn't return there because it had become one of their known haunts. Ow, _ow_, that hurts," She squirmed uncomfortably under Forceps' touch. "I only stopped for a moment! There was a light on inside. I was calling for backup when one of them found me. Must have had a radio baffle in place, I couldn't get the call to go through."

"Hnh." Forceps made one of her non-committal noises. "You just snapped a cable, here." There was the crackle of a microlance, and a spot of pain that made the Policebot hiss. "That should hold it until I get the components to fix it up properly. Come back tomorrow and I'll get the replacement in place." She gave the cycle a probing look. "Now, you sure that's all that's wrong with you?"

"What?" Pulsar felt her spark sink.

"You're shaking."

_Could she possibly suspect the Blue involvement? _Pulsar shook her head. "Just… shaken up," she lied, letting her friend sit her carefully back up. "I've not been so close to the action for vorns. I forgot what it could be like. Plus, those mechs weren't so gentle. Anyone would think they'd never seen a femme before."

Forceps expression softened. "All right. We'll get you something to settle your systems, before you head back to the station," she offered, gently.

It didn't take a lot to work out that Forceps had dosed the energon with a mild sedative, when she finally returned with it; Pulsar just hoped it wouldn't react off the Blue that would doubtless still be hanging around in her tanks. Doped fuel in hand, she sat on the table and waggled her feet, watching as Spotweld worked. The polymorph had divided his attention, and was wielding a pair of airbrushes, delicately applying the final coat of red and blue – Scarlet looked almost comically patchwork, one blue forearm on one side and one red shoulder on the other.

"How _is_ the investigation going?" Forceps prompted, from her seat at the other end of the table, resuming her puzzling over her research.

"Not so good," Pulsar replied, reluctantly, keeping her knowledge of the two Seekers to herself. "Everyone seems to be going in circles. Each time we think we have a lead, something goes wrong with it." She sipped at the energon, and felt a slight easing of the pressure in her cerebral housing. "For instance, the landlord. He's in hospital, comatose. Someone broke in and went after him." She gave Scarlet a pointed look. "Just after he spilled all his knowledge at us."

Scarlet didn't reply, just gave her a withering _well what are you looking at __me__ for?_ look.

"You ought to tell the police what _you _know," Forceps said, to the Seeker, barely glancing up from her holo-diagrams. She'd managed to find some very old technical specs for a prototype Seeker, but not much of it was matching up – this example was bulkier than her patient, and there was less emphasis on being airy, lightweight. "It might make the difference between succeeding in making the arrests or not."

"Of course, because going anywhere _near_ the police station now wouldn't immediately get _me_ arrested," he pulled a face, and waved, irritably. "Regardless of whether or not I am who she thinks I am, I'm quite sure her merry little band of Policebots would _love _to have the honour of capturing the Decepticon second-in-command's doppelganger."

"Arm," Spot murmured, distractedly, and gently pushed the gesticulating limb back into place.

Scarlet pouted, but sat still, not wanting red streaks on his clean ivory paint.

Pulsar stared down into her energon, feeling a slow tingle of inspiration, and wondered if the repaired flier would be appropriate to trade in exchange for her sanity.


	15. Chapter 15

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Fifteen**

**Disclaimer:** As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. (...Except where they're obviously OCs, which Hasbro would be silly to want to claim.)

**A/N: **Another wordy nothing-chapter. :le sigh: things might get interesting again soon, though. :)

* * *

The instant she'd got back, Pulsar headed straight up to the monitor rooms – firstly to check for her video, and make sure the culprits were easily identifiable, secondly, to check how humiliated she was going to be when word got out, and thirdly to find out why in the _Pit_ no-one had noticed and come to help!

By the time she'd got settled in front of the main computer, she knew she was withdrawing. She felt giddy, shaky, over-pressurised, and her pumps had purged her intakes twice already. Her left hand had picked up a spasm that was proving _very_ difficult to control. Forceps' sedatives were holding her for a little while, but not particularly _well_, and taking any _more_ would probably just send her into a different sort of stupor. She sat on the offending limb as much as she could, the rest of the time. It wouldn't do to get people asking questions. Questions she couldn't answer without incriminating herself would only lead to being pulled off the investigation for safety's sake.

"Eh, hey there, Pulse. Didn't see you get back off patrol." Nightsun's friendly voice came from somewhere behind. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, it's fine." She forced a smile. "Just stopped off to visit Sepp, see how things were looking in the emergency rooms." _Where in the __Pit__ was her video?!_ "Not much has changed, 'cept they have more patients."

Nightsun peered over her head at the video feeds. "Checking the _Flywheel_, huh? Having it back on your route got you spooked?" He patted her shoulder, reassuringly. "You needn't worry about it. We're checking the feeds every day, and no-one's gone back there in orns."

"But…" That couldn't be right, she knew first-hand that the bar still had plenty of activity! She stared in dismay at the screens. The feeds all showed the same silent street, the same silent buildings, the same total lack of activity – even the one in the _Flywheel_'s main lounge. Nothing at all came up. Not even last night, and she _knew_ that she'd been in the feed range of at least half a dozen cameras. That same baffle that had blocked her comm must have induced a loop in the footage.

"It's just… off-putting," she lied. "Knowing what I'm going past. Imagining them behind the door."

He must have seen her Blue-induced shaking, because the friendly pat became a more concerned continual touch. "Look, we can write it back out of your route," the sergeant offered. "It's not like we need you to go past there, we have more than enough stationary surveillance in the area."

_Which doesn't seem to be working,_ she thought, but didn't voice it out loud.

"It'll just make the patrol a bit longer," he went on. "Which won't be too big a deal, right? You've been doing an alternative route for the past dozen or so orns anyway."

"It's okay." _I have to be able to get back there to contact the dealers. It'll look suspicious if they take it out of my route because I'm 'too scared to go there', and then catch me going there anyway. _"Seriously, it's fine. Really." She forced a smile, and covered his fingers with her own. "It's just… I've not been past there since it all blew up. I'm just… just a little shaky. You know?"

"I know the feeling." He gave her hand a squeeze. "You'll get over it."

0o0o0o0o0

Flying low over the buildings only on the other side of the district, Skywarp wiggled his wings, and sideslipped gracefully towards the ground. "_Hey, TC, I'd begun to forget what it was like, flying without having to worry if I was gonna fall out of the sky_," he commented.

Thundercracker did a little roll above him and bopped a wingtip off his wingmate's canopy. "If that was a little jab aimed at _me_, it wasn't funny," he growled, but didn't sound particularly angry. Being well-rested, clean and having full tanks had eased him into a _far_ more genial frame of mind.

"_Come on, let's go harry the Autobots_," Skywarp bounced his nosecone unexpectedly against the underside of his friend's fuselage. "_We've got the fuel to get there, now._"

"If you want to go nark our hosts off, be my guest," Thundercracker tumbled gracefully sideways out of the way, and let himself transform, pointing the tips of his feet at the ground in a landing. "_I_ was figuring we could use our newfound police powers to go snoop for Screamer, because now we don't just have to look from a distance."

"_Ooh_," Skywarp sounded genuinely impressed. "_That's actually a really good idea._"

"I know," Thundercracker stood and watched while Skywarp finally elected to join him on the ground outside the little chemicals plant they were there to inspect. "It was _my _idea, so you could have taken it for granted it'd be good."

Even wearing the temporary new blue-and-yellow Police decals, they didn't go unrecognised. "Oh Primus-" The small mech startled violently at recognising them, and backed away from his door. "Decepticons?!"

Thundercracker smiled, lazily. "I think you've mistaken us for some other machines," he replied, lazily. "We're here on behalf of the police." He flashed a specially-designed badge in the mech's face, and glided sleekly past even as the old creature goggled disbelievingly at the holographic plastic.

"If I knew what you were looking for, I could help you find it," the smaller machine suggested, at last, thinly, looking unnerved at so unexpectedly having two heavily-armed Seekers in his living room.

"You were a small-time refiner, before the economy went belly up?" Thundercracker turned a probing crimson gaze onto him. "Where'd you keep your equipment? You've still got it all, I assume?"

"Oh… oh! Oh, that! Um, this way. Follow me!"

Skywarp followed at a more leisurely pace, inspecting all the containers that might have been big enough to get parts of a broken jet into. By the time he caught up with his wingmate, Thundercracker was alone again, standing by the open doors of the large building they'd seen from the air – the older machine had scuttled off to give them room to work.

Skywarp hesitated in the doorway, leaving Thundercracker to take the lead into the building. "So what are we looking for, again?"

Thundercracker had already flipped up a lid on a storage bin and was directing a high-beam torch at the interior. "Aside from red and white wings, anything suspicious."

Skywarp scoffed. "Because not much on the entire damn _planet_ is suspicious," he groused, heading down the opposite side of the room and peeking inside the nearest bin. A tiny colony of lurking arachnoid xenoforms scuttled away from his torchlight, and lurked in the corner of the bin, blinking up at him; he pulled a face, distastefully, and closed the lid before they could get any ideas of setting up home in his fuselage. "How long have these Policebot geeks been out of the loop for? Have they _forgotten_ we're still technically at war?"

Thundercracker chuckled, quietly. "Dangerous ground you're treading, there, making insinuations like that."

They passed a set of double doors at the end of the large storage room, and came face to face with a very large piece of computing equipment.

"Does this count as suspicious?" Skywarp wondered, once he'd got his face to change from the little _ooh!_ of interest at their discovery.

"We have a _Nexus_-model supercomputer here, Winnower," Thundercracker spoke into his comm. "Serial NX-197904-alt-pipe-NVR2. What's the schema?"

"That's a negative," came the analyst's reply, after a few moments. "Underpowered."

"It's a damn big machine, you sure about that?" Thundercracker gazed up the worn sides at the offline relays and darkened monitors.

"Big, but underpowered," Winnower confirmed. "It's got the output capacity, but lacks the processor power to generate the fractal complexity of the narcotic. He's not our culprit."

"Doesn't look like it's been used in vorns anyway," Skywarp commented, from behind the terminal, after Thundercracker had grumbled an affirmative and closed the link. "Half the components have seized up, back here." There was a rattle of fingers over old switches, then the low _bang_ of shearing metal, and a half-apologetic snicker. "Whoops. I didn't think that'd come right off."

"Can't you do anything without breaking it, Warp?" Thundercracker glanced down at the chunk of silver in his friend's palm. "We're going to have to arrange expenses with him to get it fixed, now."

"Tsh." Skywarp balanced the lever precariously back where it had come from, and backed slowly away from it, nodding satisfaction to himself when it failed to topple to the floor. "We don't tell him. It's not like he's using this stupid machine a lot, he'll never notice." He glanced sidelong at his friend, and held his gaze in silence for a while. "This _is_ a waste of our talents, you know," he said, and waved his torch under his wingmate's nose. "We need to be back out there, kicking some serious skidplate."

"If only we could _find_ the skidplate that most needed kicking," Thundercracker reminded him. "I thought you were the one that enjoyed being a private investigator?"

"No, I'm the one who you said will voluntarily self-destruct out of boredom."

"Well, warn me when you do, so I can get out of the way."

0o0o0o0o0

"Um, Calibrator? Cali?"

"Yes?" She looked up at the unfamiliar voice, and found one of the Seekers – Skywarp, was it? – framed in her doorway. "Can I help you?"

He fidgeted, briefly. "I hope so. I need someone with a bit of a science brain on them," he explained. "Since most of this is just going _woosh_," he waved an arm above his head, "and I want to try and get it. Can I ask you some questions?"

"If you like," she nodded, patiently. "I'll see if I can help, but I make no guarantees!"

He made a little sniffy wrinkled-lip look and shrugged, one-shoulderedly. "You probably been asked it all already anyway," he accepted, then added, cautiously; "If you were a guy making illegal narcotics, where would you hide 'em?"

She gave him a thoughtful look. "Somewhere nobody would think of looking," she half-joked, tiredly. "Perhaps… oh, I don't know. In plain sight has always been the best place to hide things, but then the police have covered most of the obvious places." She set a sensor probe carefully down, and pondered for a moment. "I suppose… maybe an old supply depot? A power station that went out of use during the war. A recycling plant. A disused warehouse. Anywhere that not many have cause to visit. And of course, I'd have enough places at my disposal that I could move things around, if needed."

The words _disused warehouse_ worried him, a little. What if they'd been sitting on top of the origin the whole time, and that was the real reason Starscream had met his painful end? He squelched his concerns, for now. "How big would it have to be?" he chased. "The equipment to make the stuff? I mean, we've seen some pretty big instruments while we've been out, me and TC, and they're all too small, apparently. Are we looking for something like planet-sized, here? Are they making it offworld and shipping it in?"

"It's not really a question of _size_, it's more to do with processor power. The outfit itself is pretty small, from what we can gather." She set her optics back to the microscope, twiddled the dials. "Which suggests that their production facility is pretty small, too."

"Define 'small'? Are we talking, like, two or three machines total? Or does fifty count as little, for things like this?"

"Well, yes, you might well be looking at just one or two individuals responsible," Calibrator confirmed. "I'd hedge my bets and say I think it'd be closer to ten, maybe fifteen, though. Some to get supplies, some to manufacture, some to take the product into the market, and so on. All depends on whether or not you have a powerful enough computer setup."

Skywarp folded his arms and lounged back against the table. "We found an old _Nexus _today, but apparently that's not big enough," he grumbled. "Do we need to be looking for Vector Sigma's long-lost cousin, or something?"

She laughed, politely. "A _Nexus _is a big machine for processing large volumes," she explained. "But mostly it's large volumes of simple chemicals. Virathesis is probably as complex as it can cope with, fractal-wise. You'd be better off looking for a machine like this," she gestured to the little analytical machine on the end of the bench. "_Vinculum-_class have the computing power to rack up high-quality fractals very quickly. This one's too small, output wise, but it's the sort of machine you should be looking for."

Skywarp inspected the computer, tiredly, crouching with his chin on the worktop. "Haven't seen _any_ of this class of computer. Where would we find 'em?"

"They tend to be specialist use," she acknowledged. "Chemicals companies, forensics laboratories, and so on. Places that need to process for trace impurities, like here, or tailor things to individual's own technical schema, that sort of thing."

"So we're looking for somewhere big?"

"We-ell, not necessarily. Provided they have the machinery and the raw energon, even a… well, I don't know, even a hospital laboratory could be big enough, at a push," she spread her hands.

"Whoa, Warp, what are you doing in here?"

Skywarp glanced up to find Thundercracker in the doorway.

The blue Seeker grinned, and teased; "got a cortex transplant?"

"Yeah, I thought I'd make a brilliant forensics scientist," Skywarp agreed, poking his tongue out. "I was just trying to get a bit of information off Calibrator, so I could make an attempt to understand things. As you're being _so_ helpful and explaining things _so_ well, to me."

Thundercracker made a _pfft_ noise. "Why are you suddenly so worried about knowing the science, anyway?"

"Well, we're not going to manage to work anything out while we're running round like headless fleshies, just chasing useless leads, right?"

"Eh, wait up, had you forgotten? Headless fleshies don't run, Warp, they fall down dead."

"Just… gr. Work with me a minute, will you? They say you have to 'know thy enemy'," Skywarp grumbled. "They know _us_, and we don't have a fragging _clue_ about _them_. I figure the only way we'll _catch_ them is to try to _think_ like them." He pouted. "You could try to be a little more understanding. This isn't easy, for me."

"Sorry, Warp," Thundercracker tried (and failed) to look contrite. "I was just so… _shocked_… by how _deep _you were being."

Skywarp gave him a dirty look. "Oh, why don't you just go get _smelted_, you pain in the afterburners."

0o0o0o0o0

_Skated too close to the edge for the last time. Primus, how did you get to be so damn __stupid__? In it up to your spark-casing, and this time there __is__ no way out_.

She'd lain awake and listening to the quiet cycling of her room-mates fans the entire way up to her shift, when she _should_ have been resting. She was the only one still awake – even Whitesides, who always seemed to have difficulty engaging his dormancy protocols, was humming quietly in recharge in the top bunk opposite. She'd never had problems going dormant before. She wasn't sure if it was Blue withdrawal itself that was keeping her from doing so, or if it was just the worry doing it.

What was she going to do? What _could_ she do? Give up Scarlet, and the other two would be baying for her energon, because she couldn't possibly hope it'd go unnoticed. Probably bad enough that she'd held out on telling them he was still alive, she'd probably end up in lots of itty bitty pieces if she didn't tell them _and_ tried to bargain her way out of a mess of her own making by using him.

Wasn't as if it'd help, anyway. Even if she _did_ somehow win their favour by giving up the flier, it wasn't going to _cure_ her. She'd still be reliant on the foul stuff. Trying to go without the processor-curling chemicals was almost as bad as the half-sparked muddle that had gone _with_ them – right now, everything had whirled up in a jumble of half-processed thoughts and bad ideas.

She'd researched the drug, something she'd not cared to do properly until now, and felt wretched. Everything Forceps had said about it looked true – once you had the viral damage, that was it. A continual supply of drug was needed just to be able to function properly. Strength of character counted for nothing – not that her character was particularly strong in the first place. You couldn't just _will_ the side-effects away.

She'd made it through the day, somehow, without anyone asking any worrying questions, but nothing had cleared. The side effects were all still there, twisting at her insides, although thankfully they weren't getting any worse. Her pumps – which she still couldn't seem to offline properly – kept on jittering, contracting and trying to purge tanks that were already empty. Her head throbbed from the pressure. Even complete, total prone inactivity wasn't settling her gyroscopes down; they were still skipping like sprites in her brainpan, and the room swayed and rotated in front of her optics. Even the subdued lights by the door were painful to look at, overloading optical receptors and throwing up so many jaggy, blurry rainbow haloes that any details were hard to work out.

There was only one thing for it – she was going to have to go back, and plead her case. Find something they'd accept as a bargain. Something that didn't involve her (metaphorically, at least) baring her spark casing to angry fliers, who'd probably not even hesitate to put a fist through it if they knew what she was contemplating using them for.

When time for her patrol rolled around, she headed out as normal… until she was out of sight, and then turned straight across to the _Flywheel_, hoping _hoping_ they'd be there oh Primus let them be there. Maybe she could barter. Was there something else they wanted? Maybe she could just run them information, be a go-between. Sabotage the investigation in small ways – that could even be worked in her favour. If she could be a double-agent, secretly passing information on to Hardline. The Chief Inspector would never forgive her for weakening the investigation by putting herself into this sort of position, but if she could soften the blow a little by getting valuable information off the big thugs who got her into the position in the first place.

…Primus, who was she trying to kid? She just wanted the Blue. _Needed_ the Blue. If she had to endure much more of this she knew she'd do anything for it, just to get her brain back.

The _Flywheel_ was silent, and dark, tonight. Were they even here? She concentrated on quieting the way her pumps were jittering, nauseatingly. They had to be here. _Had_ to be. She needed-… she _needed… _She clutched at her sidelights and moaned, softly, curling down on herself. How could things have gone so horribly wrong? It wasn't even as if it was her fault she was addicted! Well, maybe it was, a little bit – if she'd not _stopped_, if she'd just headed straight back and called in the heavy hitters. No _way_ would _Hardline_ have been wrestled into accepting that horrible stuff. But then she'd barely stopped for half a breem! Just long enough to decide she needed to call in backup-

She lowered her gaze and licked her lips, silently. It felt like there were a hundred white-hot sprites flickering along her wiring. She imagined the strong, exotic fuel bathing her jittery insides, the heady calm and perfect stillness that would come after. Her left hand contracted tightly and painfully at her side. _Need it. __Need__ it. _Plotting and planning faded in the face of this mind-cramping _need_.

"Well, hello there, Autobot," an unpleasantly familiar voice greeted, and she turned slowly to come face-to-face with Fatigue. "What could _you_ possibly be here for? Come to arrest me?" He smirked, and offered his wrists, palms up.

"You _know_ what I'm here for," she ground out, shakily. "_Give me some_."

"Oh, no no _no_, that's not how it works at _all_," Fatigue cooed, and patted her helm until she ducked backwards, out of reach. "My dear little Policebot, Blue is an essential commodity, to be appropriately traded for goods or services!"

"But I _need_ it-" She hugged her arms around herself, protectively, trying to stop her arms shaking.

"I know _that_, my pretty, why else would you be here?" He smiled, smugly. "So, like most normal machines do for things they need, we'll make an exchange. You have essential commodities that _we_ want, just as much as you want our lovely Blue, and once we've done the trade, both of us will be satisfied."

"What could I possibly have that you want?" She stared at him with an increasingly unnerved expression in her optics. Deuce leered meaningfully at her from behind Fatigue, and she backed off, pulling a face.

"First of all, have this," the tractor held out a tiny royal-blue cube, and she _snatched_ it out of his fingers, hungrily. He chuckled. They were all so malleable when they were desperate. "Calm your mood and get yourself under control first, then we'll do business."

The Blue Ruin kicked just as hard as it did that first time – it was like getting an elbow square in the power regulator. But sweet Primus it felt good – blasted the sprites out of her brain, settled the swaying gyroscopes, bled off the painful pressure in her coolant. Her pumps hummed obediently, processed the toxic fuel instead of causing the giddying nauseating urge to purge everything from them.

"Now, contrary to what my excitable co-conspirator would have you believe," Fatigue oiled, sweetly, "sexual favours are not on the bartering list for tonight."

Deuce glared and gave him a shove.

"We want something more valuable," Fatigue went on, more seriously, watching as she sucked frantically at the cube, and the spasms in her hands first increased, momentarily, then faded to nothing. "We want one of your Seekers."

"Seek-…?" she glanced up, optics bleary, traces of blue fluid at the corner of her mouth. Ruin had a powerful _kick_ as it reintegrated, left her briefly muggy-headed. _Primus, no. The one thing she'd hoped – naively, she later realised – they'd not ask for._ "Seek what-… I don't-…"

"Those oh-so-pretty Decepticon fliers that have broken the mould to work with the police?" he explained, petting her smooth brow. "It's only fair. You have one, we want one as well."

She pulled back away from him, unnerved. "No, I can't. I can't get close to them, and they'll kill me if they find out-!" she stammered. "There must be something else I can get you."

"There's nothing else we want." Fatigue smiled, genially. "And to be honest, if they do kill you? It's no big deal to us. You're the lowest of the low, constable, a squeaky, noisy nonentity with an overblown opinion of her abilities. You exist to serve us, now."

"But I can't do it," she shook her head, shrinking down on herself. Now it had come to the crunch, the idea of turning herself willingly into just another supplier was almost unbearable. "I can't. Not even to them. I can't be responsible for adding more individuals to the problem. Isn't there some other agreement we can come to?"

"Oh, I think you'll find all those noble ideals of yours evaporate off soon enough," Fatigue comforted, amusedly. "Blue deprivation has that effect on folk. A few orns enduring the side effects, and you'll convince yourself it's all worth it, just to keep your mind working straight. And let's face it, you're quite the weak-willed little spark." He gave her a prod in the chest. "You could barely endure _one_ orn. You'll be climbing the walls after two."

"But-… but there's got to be some other way. I-I can still pass information to you." Her insides twisted painfully at the idea. "Just don't make me go after the fliers, please."

"Oh, yes, there _is _another way, little one," Fatigue confirmed, and smiled. "Basic retails at sixteen credits for a cube, Ruin is twenty-two, Prophet thirty. If you speak nicely to Deuce, too, he might cut you a deal in exchange for other 'favours'."

She stared at him for several long moments. "…I can't afford that!"

"Don't you worry, I'll make you a reeeally _good _deal," Deuce murmured, and gave her a lascivious smile. "I know plenty of mechs who've gone without servicing their potency for a _long_ time, they'll make sure you don't go unmedicated."

"But I can't-"

"All right. Look. This has gone far enough. I'm tired of playing along with you, so let me spell it out, because you seem to be having problems with the finer details." Fatigue lowered his heavy head, and spoke very softly, close to her audio pickups. "You seem to think this is all some silly _game_ we're playing," he said, in a murmur. "Allow me to disillusion you. It is not. You will not catch us out. You will not get us to slip up. If you try to play us false in any way, things will get very difficult for you. Simply put, you will. Not. Win. Do you understand me so far?"

She nodded, once, tightly.

"Good. When we next meet, you will have a Seeker with you. Of his own conscious volition. Ready to take his next set of orders from _us_. Is that also understood?"

"But I-"

He lowered his voice to a whisper, and she felt the gust of his fans against her cortical housing. "I said, is that understood?"

She nodded, jerkily.

"Good," he straightened. "With that in mind, I'm gonna give you one last opportunity to do things the easy way. Primus only knows why I'm giving you such a cosy ride, maybe I just like your face." He gently placed a cluster of small cubes into Pulsar's shaking fingers. "I'm giving you just enough to get the job done and keep your mind in working order. If you don't do the job, I'll send the debt collector after you, and if you remember what happened to the good landlord of the _Flywheel_, you'll be a good little femme and not waste the product."

Siphon waved his spindly fingers, and offered a sinister little smile, and she knew what was being implied.

"Do a good job, on the other hand, and you'll get enough product to keep you going until we need you again. We might be big nasty drug pushers, but we do have a sense of fair play."

She stared down at the cluster of glowing blue shapes in her hands, and managed, hollowly; "where do I find you once I've done it? Will you still be here?"

Fatigue smiled. "Ah ah, can't tell you yet. Don't want you playing us false, and sending in a SWAT team instead of behaving yourself."

"But how will I find you-"

"Don't you worry, Skinny," he gave her a condescending pat on the head. "We'll give you all the details on where we'll make the drop, once you've been a good little Policebot and done what you've been told. Remember – we have eyes and ears _everywhere_. We'll know."

She sat and watched them vanish into the shadows, and groaned, softly.

…Being close to the action wasn't much fun, any more.

0o0o0o0o0

The corridor where the two Seekers were lodging was a quiet one – and not just because there weren't the heavy troops in barracks at the moments, but because nobody seemed to want to bunk quite so closely to the Decepticons, just in case. Temporary Neutrality didn't erase thousands of Vorns of animosity. Snoozing next door to two of the most feared enemy fliers ever to slice through Cybertron's aerospace seemed too much like tempting fate.

Pulsar hesitated outside their doorway. She could hear voices inside, so they were clearly both there – there was no doubt that getting _two_ of them would do wonders for her standing with the Blue loyalists, but even the idea of attempting it made her cringe inwardly. The giant had been right – morals were so easily put to one side when Blue was the subject of conversation.

But maybe they'd overstepped their own abilities as well, the Sleeper and his nasty associates. They were so happily convinced that getting a Seeker on board would be advantageous to them, they probably had no concept of just how destructive a slighted Decepticon could be. Perhaps adding a flier to the mix would be the edge _the Police_ needed!

She tapped hesitantly on the door, and the voices paused.

"Hello?" Suspicious crimson optics and dark fingers appeared around the edge of the door.

"Mister Thundercracker?"

The Seeker nodded, narrowing his gaze. "We've finished for today," he pointed out, opening the door a little more so Skywarp could see what was going on. "Can it wait?"

"It-it's not work," Pulsar stammered, hesitantly. He was even more intimidating, close up. "There's, um… I have a friend. She's been trying to get in contact with you, because she thinks you may be able to help one of her patients. Can you spare a breem or two?"

Two pairs of hostile optics had focussed on her – it was hard not to imagine two unseen pairs of crosshairs lining up on her midsection.

"How many more ways are there of saying this?" Skywarp wondered, out loud. "If there's nothing in it of any worth for us, we Don't. Help. Autobots."

"My friend isn't an Autobot, she's Neutral. Please. It'll only be for a breem or two," she hesitated. "And it's relevant to you!"

They swapped looks.

"Relevant _how_?" Skywarp challenged.

"I-… look, I can't say, out loud. Please, just trust me?"

Thundercracker was the first to fold. "We got nothing better to do, Warp," he commented, over his shoulder. "You never know. Might be a lead."

"You want to _go along with_ this silly little blip of nothing?"

"Not especially, but if it stops her whining, why not?"

0o0o0o0o0

"Remind me why we're doing this?"

Thundercracker glanced sideways at Skywarp – both were coasting awkwardly low over buildings, following the grav-cycle at speeds _far_ too low to maintain lift, forced to rely on their antigravs to stay in the air. "Well, it's this or walk."

"You _know _that's not what I meant."

The blue Seeker chuckled, and Skywarp huffed and revved, impatiently. Low airspeeds were frustrating because they led to stalling, and Skywarp was jittery enough without that compounding the issue. "We're doing this because you're bored."

"I was _not_ bored, I was quite happily getting ready for a nice long flask of cool energon, a bath and recharge-"

Down below, the Policebot had halted and transformed, and was waving them down.

"I've been here before," Thundercracker observed, curiously, gliding down. "Back at the start, when we were looking for Starscream, I visited this street." He made a face. "No-one was very helpful."

"So where's this friend of yours?" Skywarp folded his arms and stared down at their guide.

"Ah, um, o-over here-" She gestured to a neat little single-storey property, a few strides away. "She's been trying to get hold of you for quite a few orns…"

There were voices, in the background, Skywarp noticed, and promptly lost all interest in what Pulsar was saying, focussing on the murmuring. One was gruff, deep, possibly female, but that wasn't the one he was interested in – the interesting one was quiet, but had an eerily familiar nails-down-the-blackboard quality to it. Scratchy, like a badly-tuned vocal processor. Almost nasal, brittle as old plastic…

He felt his wings suddenly trembling as his body responded completely inappropriately to the surge of emotion.

"Warp?" Thundercracker noticed the high-pitched whine of his weapons coming online. "What are you playing at? Don't you dare get all shooty on me-"

"Do you hear that?" Skywarp ignored the question, excitedly.

"Hear what?"

"Listen!"

Thundercracker frowned, thought… then jerked his head up to meet Skywarp's own amazed crimson stare. "But that sounds like-"

"I know!"

"But it can't be!"

"Why not?!"

"They said he was-"

"You're not telling me you _believed_ them?! Come on, it's not like those Auto-butts haven't been wrong before…!"

As one, the two Seekers bolted for the doorway, wings clashing and almost tripping each other in their haste to get where they wanted to be. Skywarp virtually trampled Thundercracker on the steps, threw his weight at the closed door.

The two speakers had gone silent, startled, as the door _crashed_ back on its hinges. There was a female working there – a big, square-looking green female, big as Optimus Prime and probably just as strong, with the same silly battle-mask-… no, that was a surgical mask, you could just make out the HEPA filters at the sides.

And just to one side of her, looking peevish, blue fingers tight on the edges of the berth he was sat on but otherwise patient as the female worked on his wings, was a familiar flash of red and white.


	16. Chapter 16

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Sixteen**

**Disclaimer:** As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. (...Except where they're obviously OCs, which Hasbro would be silly to want to claim.)

**A/N:** you won't believe how long I've had this bit essentially written – it was just getting up to it that was taking the time. ;)

…unfortunately, things are about to get a whole lot more difficult.

* * *

"Primus!" a voice yelped, and Scarlet had only managed to turn halfway in the direction of the voice when a body collided violently with him, and knocked the pair of them clean off the berth and onto the floor in a tangle of arms and wings. "Where in the _Pit _were you hiding, you dirty fragger?!"

"What in the-" He found another Seeker – this one black and purple – apparently attempting to semi-permanently attach itself around his torso.

"You're not dead! I didn't kill you!" the fracturing voice keened, excitedly. "I thought we thought I mean that is everyone said we thought you were dead." Words spilled in a disjointed flurry from his assailant's vocaliser, and excited purple fingers smeared out across his chassis, on down his wings, as if checking it was all real and genuinely repaired. "And you're not dead oh Primus above you're not dead you're not even a little bit dinged up you're all fixed and beautiful and you're not dead-!"

For her part, Forceps was comprehensibly molesting the blue Seeker in the doorway, turning him through a variety of angles and skilfully dodging the flailing arms, demanding "are you the same model? Why have you been so hard to get in contact with! Stand still! Are you the same model as him, do you have the same cortical circuitry? Stand _still_!"

"What in the _Pit_ is going on?" Scarlet demanded, seizing his attacker by the audio vents and forcing his head up to look him in the optic. "Who in Primus name are you, and what do you think you're playing at? Get off me, right this instant!"

His dark assailant's crimson gaze flushed briefly brighter in embarrassment, but he quickly recovered his dignity and peeled himself off Scarlet's chassis, straightened up. "Ooh, er, I mean-… I should say… Um." A purple hand outstretched. "Can I help you up?"

"Just. Get. Off." Scarlet lowered his voice to a growl.

"Right… right!" The dark Seeker leaped up as if stung, then _yeep!_ed as Forceps grabbed him around the shoulders, and steered him out of the way.

Forceps cast her gaze heavenwards, and silently hauled Scarlet up off the floor. "Maybe one of you two could get around to telling me exactly what's going on, here?" she pondered, out loud.

The two fliers promptly ignored her, talking over each other and making none of their questions intelligible, crowding closer to the red Seeker, who instinctually backed off.

He looked between the two faces and frowned. "…um…" Their optics were glowing, and they were clearly both pleased to see him, but-… who _were_ they? "…do I know you?"

The excitement of finding him actually alive and functioning _and_ almost fully repaired, apparently in spite of all the odds and expectations, rapidly dwindled at the realisation that the clueless expression on the puzzled face was genuine.

"Is this some sort of joke, Screamer?" the blue one asked, darkly. "Because it's not funny, if it is. After we ran ourselves ragged looking for you-"

"I bet this is some stupid Autobot plot," the darker Seeker interrupted, rounding on the Policebot lurking in the doorway, glaring hotly at her. "After all the help we've been giving you, you still want to do away with us? What have you _done_ to him?!"

"Actually, your guide had little to do with this," Forceps corrected, genially. "I've been trying to get in contact with you for some time, but you've made yourselves hard to find. We almost met up a while ago," she nodded towards the blue flier, "but, ah… you were quicker in the air that I was on the ground."

The dark Seeker gave his blue twin a reproachful look.

0o0o0o0

"Why didn't you tell us?!" Skywarp was raging, rounded on Pulsar. "You watched us despair after the supposed 'death' of our wingmate, and all this time you _knew _he was fine and you didn't even breathe a _word-!_"

"Because it'd have been different if it had been you?" She folded her arms defensively, and scowled back at him. "_You_ wouldn't have told _us_ if our places had been reversed."

"What's wrong with him?" Thundercracker ignored the pair squabbling, gave his scarlet friend a sad look, and waved a hand in front of his face. "Don't you recognise us, Screamer?"

"I can _see_ you just fine," Starscream corrected, irritably pushing the hand away, then shook his head. "The only Policebot I know is the whiney little one over there."

"Well, technically we're not police," Skywarp countered, turning away from his semi-argument with the grav-cycle. "We're just… freelancing, I guess." He made a face at his Autobot sparring partner and added; "It was a good idea _at the time_."

"You said you'd been looking for us?" Thundercracker reminded. "What for?"

Forceps smiled grimly. "I'm not familiar enough with Seeker anatomy to know how to fix him, and haven't been able to find any references."

"Because they broke the mould when they made us," Skywarp guessed, modestly.

Thundercracker snorted a half-hearted laugh. "Well, they certainly broke _something_ when they made you, right, Warp?" he quipped, tiredly. "So what do you need us for, doctor? We can't very well instruct you."

"Well, no," Forceps agreed, bluntly. "I need to get a look at how your cortical circuitry connects up."

Skywarp leaped away in alarm. "Whoa whoa, just wait a second! You want to look _in our brains_?!" He positioned the table strategically between them. "No, no! I'm not having any Autobot sympathiser poking around in _my _primary cortex, TC!" he exclaimed, sounding unnaturally horrified. "Can't we just get her some pictures?!"

"Didn't you hear her? She couldn't _find_ any pictures."

"She _says_. Come on, TC, have the police stolen your sense of self-preservation? We're not the only race of machines that can _lie_!" Skywarp waved his arms, irritably. "What she's asking us to do is like… like baring our sparks to Megatron when _he's_ having a bad day and _we've _screwed up," he elaborated, folding his arms. "Sure, maybe nothing'll happen, but maybe he'll yank your spark casing right out and grind it into the floor beneath his heel! Ergo, she is _not_ looking in _my_ _brain_."

"I have to agree you're probably not a shining example of Seeker psychological anatomy, anyway," Thundercracker noted, with a grin. "For all we know, your stupid paranoia is all down to a physical fault."

"Hey, hey. I'm not stupid, I'm unconventional, remember?"

"I guess I could stand letting you take a peek in my head," Thundercracker offered, reluctantly. "If it means we get Screamer back on his feet."

"Whoa, TC, did you just ignore everything I said?" Unseen hands grabbed him and almost jerked him off his feet in their haste to bundle him out of reach behind the table. "You don't even trust _Hook_ to go poking about in your brain, and he's one of _us_! There's got to be some other way of doing this."

"The only reason Hook would have for needing to go 'poking about' in my cortex would be for some dastardly plot to do away with all of us," Thundercracker tugged his arms free. "You heard the doctor – she has to work out what bit goes where before she knows how to fix him."

"I only need to look for a little while," Forceps added, reassuringly.

"Well I need to talk to my friend before you get started," Skywarp announced, and hustled Thundercracker away into the far corner before the blue Seeker had the chance to argue.

Thundercracker gave him an exasperated glare. "What?"

"You can't trust them," Skywarp insisted, in a stage whisper. "Not with something like this! Not to look _in your brain_! _Actually __in__ your __brain__!_"

"What's the worst that can happen, Warp?" Thundercracker gestured. "They put Starscream back together-"

"They didn't know who he was!"

"Not for definite, but I bet they suspected it, and they went ahead and fixed him up anyway."

"Exactly!" Skywarp threw up his hands, unable to understand why his friend couldn't see where he was leading. "It's a trap, he's the bait to draw us in! They'll open up your braincase and reprogram you, then get the pair of you to get _me_. Primus help me, I know I'm not the smartest but I don't need _brainwashing_!"

"You'll forgive me for interrupting, I hope," a scratchy voice drawled from behind, "but just in case you'd forgotten, it's _me_ that has no memory, and I _would_ like to have my brain back, sometime soon."

Skywarp shot a guilty look backwards over his shoulder, and looked torn between defending his healthy wingmate, and helping the ill one. "TC, I can't let you put your health on the line. What if I lose you, too?"

"Look, we've been watching each others' backs for longer than I can remember," Thundercracker suggested, softly. "So you just stay here and watch while she works."

Skywarp pursed his lips and considered it. "I won't know what she's doing," he reminded him. "Brain surgery is far, _faaar_ beyond my league."

"Well, if she's telling the truth, she's just going to be _looking_ – no clipping, snipping, tweaking, removing, nothing. You can cope with that, right? Besides," Thundercracker jerked his head at Pulsar, who was sitting sulkily on the table. "Busybody over there can keep an eye out, too."

"If she's not in on it as well," Skywarp muttered, but backed reluctantly down.

Thundercracker stepped forwards. "Before I agree to this, I have two questions," he said, softly, and watched as the surgeon gave a curt nod. "Question one, will there be any lasting damage to _me_, and question two… will it hurt?"

"There'll be no damage at all, and no pain," Forceps reassured. "May be a bit uncomfortable, but I'll be as quick as I can. I just need to have a look at how it all connects up. You'll barely know I'm there."

In the background, Skywarp muttered something barely intelligible about it being a plot to destroy two powerful Decepticon officers in one swoop, then added, more clearly; "and I'll make sure you do only what you said you'd do, quickly and painlessly. Any funny business, Autobot, and you won't live long enough to gloat about it."

"Paranoid little sparkling, aren't you?" Forceps pointed out, irritably. "Why would I have spent so long fixing him up, only to kill him the second you pair turn up? And for the last time, I'm not an Autobot."

Skywarp matched glares. "That doesn't mean I have to trust you."

Thundercracker settled stiffly at the table and offlined his optics. "Let's get this over with," he grumbled, softly, leaning forward onto folded arms and tensing his fingers into fists so tight that the motors whined very slightly. In spite of the willingness to help that he'd demonstrated to Skywarp, inwardly he was in turmoil. He was about to open up his central cortex – a part of him that was almost as vital as his spark – to a machine who he had only known for a breem or two, and who knew exactly who _he_ was. One quick thrust from a sharp tool and bye-bye Thundercracker-

"All right," a voice interrupted his introspection. "Little cold touch at your nape, all right?"

"…right…" Thundercracker tensed his fingers again and worked hard on fighting the pervasive desire to react. If he jumped while she had that stylus in his brain, _anything_ could get irreparably broken – and there was no way in the Pit that Skywarp would tolerate sitting still enough for her to glance at his cerebral relays.

There was the touch of a superchilled stylus at the nape of his neck, and he felt automatic defences trying to kick in. His weaponry kept trying to online. Things weren't _supposed_ to get into one's cranial housing without good cause, certainly not when awake. There was an odd sliding sensation – plates reconfiguring, sliding against each other-… Plates which _shouldn't_ move, _shouldn't _slide against each other. He shuddered involuntarily.

"Sorry," a voice apologised, and a hand touched reassuringly at his wing.

"Is it working?" he gritted out. It was a disquieting sensation to feel your own coolant vapours gust coldly around your faceplates. He deactivated his fuel pumps to still the sensation of creeping nausea, and kept his optics offlined to avoid having to look at the haze of twinkling 'smoke' rolling down his arms and across the table.

"Yes. Everything's working just as it should."

"Feels unpleasant."

"I know. I'm sorry. Bear with me. I won't be much longer." There was a little puff of extra refrigerant vapour, and a little more prodding. It was an unpleasant and surreal feeling, tiny feather-light touches where feather-light touches shouldn't even be able to get in the first place. At least she had the decency to use a _cold_ instrument – the cortex was kept ultra-cool for maximum efficiency, and even a room-temperature stylus would have flared up a dozen painful alerts.

The reassuring hand on his wing moved to stroke its fingers gently downwards over the sensitive surface, clearly intending to try and reassure and relax him. A pleasant ribbon of feedback rippled through the sheer layer, and he focussed on that sensation instead of the fingers tickling his brain, forced his fingers to unclench.

The stylus tip lifted a memory plate gently out of the way. "Aha. Here we go." She gave him another puff of extra coolant to keep him cool, then leaned closer, magnifying the tiny connectors. "Not much longer."

Thundercracker could hear Skywarp jittering and pacing in the background. The dark Seeker clearly wanted to leap in and wrestle the Neutral away, but knew he couldn't because she had a long, sharp stick in his friend's brain, and who _knew_ what would happen it he made her jump. If the noises he was making were anything to go by, he was engaged in a roiling internal fight to keep his hands to himself. Thundercracker almost smiled at the idea. _Poor Warp. _

"Get on with it, Autobot," came Skywarp's instruction, muffled in the background.

"Shut up, Warp," he snapped, grimly. "Don't distract her." His own voice came through muffled – plating must have shifted into the way of his audios.

"Okay," she said, at last, and there was another of those sensations of extra cool as she jetted coolant vapours at his cortex, and then that shifting sensation of unfamiliar movement. "I think I'm done. Everything still good and functional in there?"

That last had clearly been for Skywarp's benefit. "Everything seems fine," Thundercracker confirmed.

At long last, all the flashing red lights in his brain settled back to green; Skywarp was an instant presence, all jostling wings and unintelligible questions. He fought him off, somewhat ineffectually. "Warp, I'm fine. Skywarp-… cut it out! Get off! I'm fine."

"You ready?" Forceps turned to give Starscream a considering look.

The dark head nodded, just once. "As I'll ever be."

Thundercracker watched, morbidly fascinated, as the black plating at the back of his friend's head cracked with a little hiss of vapour, then slid up and aside, a flurry of supplementary dull chrome plating underneath irising open at a further few touches. Starscream looked like he was tolerating the procedure about as well as he himself had, his legs so tense they were grinding his feet against the floor and throwing up tiny showers of sparks, thrusters whining impotently, his fingers first splaying open and then convulsing back into fists.

"That feeling never gets any better, Sepp," he commented, breathily. "Could you hurry up a little?"

"I thought you said you didn't know how to fix him?" Skywarp challenged, finally electing to stop molesting the long-suffering Thundercracker. "So what were you doing looking in his brain?"

Forceps smiled, apologetically. "I'm a surgeon. Thinking you know everything goes with the territory," she confessed, glancing up. "Had I not been worried about connecting up the wrong components, I'd have had a damn good try at fixing him up regardless of not being a hundred percent sure of what went where."

"You could have messed him up-!"

"Why do you think I just _looked_, in the end?"

"What did they do to him, anyway?" Thundercracker asked, softly, approaching quietly and peering over Forceps' broad shoulders. It looked like a silver arachnid had taken up residence in his friend's dark helm, and he silently thanked Primus that he hadn't been asked to attempt to repair it.

"I haven't _quite_ worked out," Forceps admitted, delicately manipulating the tiny lines of broken circuitry back into place, untangling some of the spiderweb of broken filaments. "Looks like some kind of… of sharp implement was forced under his cranial armour. Didn't do much actual _damage_, per se, but obviously snipped juuust the right connections…" She sprayed a little more coolant in, then extended a surgical lance from her fingertip. "You lot better be very, _very_ quiet now," she observed, addressing everyone in the room but glancing pointedly back at Skywarp.

Skywarp made a face and poked out his tongue, but kept miraculously quiet.

It took every last ounce of Starscream's self-control not to squirm; unlike Thundercracker, who had endured the comparative luxury of a _cold _stylus delicately examining his hardware, this time the surgeon was forced to use a filamentous welding lance, which was _hot_. Even all the extra coolant Forceps was using didn't _completely_ negate the spots and scratches of fierce pain as she dabbed the microscopic welds in place, and every now and then he'd twitch and fidget his feet.

"How much longer?" Starscream asked, at last, and he sounded distant, almost delirious. His optics gazed unfocused down at his blue fingers, which were flexing involuntarily, and a slight vibration had set up in one thruster, buzzing where his heel met the floor.

Forceps gave his hands a hard look, and pursed her lips. "Nearly there." _It was just underused circuits reintegrating, that was all. Primus, that better be all it was._ "Still feeling okay?"

"…hnh, not sure."

"Well, we'll soon see." She focused on the tiny filamentous lines of delicate cortical circuitry, just replicating what she'd mapped out from Thundercracker's internals. "One last connector, and then I think we're done," she explained, delicately. There was the pinpoint flicker of heat, a tiny curl of vaporised microsolder, and a last jet of coolant. "Okay, that's it," she patted his wing, and carefully tweaked the little microclamp to iris his cranial armour back up. "Wait until your helm has resealed, repressurised and fully re-chilled before you try accessing anything, I want you to have the best run at this as possible."

"Yes, doctor…" That was clearly _intended_ to be sarcastic, but the hesitant undertone spoiled the effect.

A fraction of a breem passed in silence.

"It that better?" Forceps prompted, quietly.

For another short while, there was nothing. Starscream straightened very slowly, hesitantly releasing the tension in his knuckles – there was the sound of joints popping softly back into place – and his turbines whined down and deactivated. He stared off into the distance, optics flickering involuntarily as he accessed his memory and checked everything was functioning as it should have been…

Then he turned, slowly, and looked his wingmates in the optics… and his lips quirked into a lopsided grin, and Skywarp gave a _whoop! _of unashamed delight and crashed into him. Thundercracker wasn't far behind him. _Starscream _endured the joyous mauling far better than _Scarlet_ had, although he still grumbled amusedly.

"Now explain to me what _this_ fluff is all about?" he challenged, at last, prodding Skywarp in the wing.

Skywarp followed the stabbing finger, and found it pressed up against the electric yellow and blue piping that had been temporarily applied to his armour. "Oh, that," he smiled, embarrassed. "We've been working for the police for a little bit. Partly so we could try find this… this _Blue_ stuff, and partly so we could keep looking for you."

"I'm touched," Starscream observed, and smirked, lopsidedly. "But you'll forgive me if I elect not to join you in the enemy's colours, I hope."

The door murmured quietly open again, and an exhausted Spotweld barely spared them a second glance. "Oh! You found your Seekers, then, Sepp?" he observed, by way of greeting, and sagged into a tangle of limbs into an easy chair in the corner, looking a little like a kicked spider. He was dusty, grimy with old joint-fluid, and sporting a flurry of new dents across his broad chest.

"They found _me_, actually," she filled in.

"You'll be wanting to move on again, then?" Spotweld glanced up at Starscream.

"Trying to get rid of me, Spots?" Starscream arched an amused brow, then frowned. "Did you get in a fight, or something?"

"Another riot at the hospital," Spotweld confirmed. "Some of those addicts can be violent, when they're particularly desperate? And they know we keep all the confiscated supplies in the neighbouring departments until the police can pick it up?" He pinched the bridge of his nose, flexed his dented toes. "Being _big_ means I get elected to back-up Hospital Security, quite a lot? I'm not designed to stand up to violence very well, so I'm probably _covered _in dents again…"

Pulsar had remained uncharacteristically quiet in her chair at the end of the table, just watching proceedings. Given the little Autobot's previous outspoken stance against the Decepticon Seekers, she just came across as _unwell_.

"You okay, Pulse?" Forceps prodded, gently.

The Policebot glanced up to find Forceps watching her, wearing one of her more _probing _stares. "I'm fine," she replied, at last, and through some tremendous effort of will got her traitorous left hand to stop vibrating. "Just-…" She glanced sidelong at the reunited trine, and shivered. "Unnerved. It's not every day you get the opportunity to share the same roof at Megatron's Most Deadly, and survive the encounter."

Thankfully, the surgeon looked vaguely satisfied at the answer – at least, she didn't ask any more difficult questions.

"So what are we planning on doing now we're reunited, at last?" Thundercracker wondered.

"We've got a point to prove, remember?" Skywarp growled. "They think they're so fantastic, so wonderful as our _replacements_. They think they might actually be able to replace us as the ruling power! Well, we're going to find them. All of them! We're going to find the ringleaders, wipe this _purge-fluid_ off the streets, and teach them why _nobody_ messes with the Decepticons."

"Dear Primus, Warp just said something that I didn't need a translator to understand." Starscream clapped a hand to his brow in exaggerated astonishment. "What have you done to him while I was away, TC?"

"I don't know, I was beginning to wonder if the police hadn't accidentally replaced him with a clone," Thundercracker replied, and chuckled at the tonguepoke he got in response.

"Maybe I can help," Forceps offered, giving Skywarp a pointed look. "Didn't I hear you hypothesise something about his mental deficit being due to a physical problem?"

"Ack! No! Don't you come _near_ me with that torture-stick!" Skywarp fled.

0o0o0o0

It was getting late, and the police had begun to worry that their temporary Decepticon allies had flown the coop and gone off to cause more trouble when the absentee pair of Seekers finally elected to return – although now there were three of them. Blue, black, and… red. Looking like he'd never been away, Starscream touched down and ambled up the front ramp quite happily between his wing-mates.

"Didn't I say he was tenacious?" Jazz pointed out, noticing the helicopter's jaw drop and rotors quiver in shock.

"But-… dead!" Nightsun spluttered. "He was dead!"

"Well, apparently not," Prowl smiled, patiently. "Someone must have scraped him up off the streets before he finally offlined for good."

"So now what?" Jazz asked, quietly, not letting his smile slip. "Get ready to defend ourselves?"

"Defend, yes," Prowl gave a nod. "But let's avoid taking _offensive_ action – if we don't start shooting, for once maybe they won't either."

"What makes you think _that_?"

"If you look closely," Prowl gestured as the trio approached. "They've not taken off the police decals. I do have one question, though," he met the strange blue gaze of the Decepticon Air Commander, as they drew to a halt in front of him. "Does this mean our agreement is terminated?"

"What agreement was this?" Starscream looked at each of his wingmates in turn. "_Another_ thing you two have forgotten to tell me?"

"We thought they'd killed you," Thundercracker supplied, moving very slightly ahead and blocking Prowl's aim. "So we called a truce, for now. While we got to the bottom of this mess."

"We wanted to avenge your name, somehow," Skywarp added. "They might have been the only way to find out who it was fragged you up that night."

"If there was a point you were just making, I think I missed it. How exactly is allying with the _Autobots_ 'avenging my name'?"

"There's only two of us, if you remember," Skywarp gave him a friendly elbow. "And we weren't exactly in great shape when we lost you. Flew ourselves to the point of stasis, looking for you. Why'd you have to go run off, you dirty slagger?"

"Well, you're both idiots," Starscream pointed out, but he was smiling in a way that was _almost_ affectionate, and there was a little more friendly jostling of wings.

"So, does this mean you're joining the party?" Jazz offered.

A wry smile softened Starscream's face. "Well, they killed me. I have to avenge my name somehow."

0o0o0o0

A few breems later found the Aerospace Commander sitting sulking between his wingmates in the break room, trying to hide his discomfort at being completely surrounded by Autobots. It was almost as if they were trying to convert him an Autobot by proxy – if they added enough of their stickers, he'd just be forced to change his entire mindset to match.

Starscream had sullenly allowed them to apply the temporary decals to the margins of his wings; Hardline had laid down the law to him, and said if he wanted to stay out of the cells, he had to comply with regulations, even as a freelance worker. Skywarp and Thundercracker had found it unrealistically amusing, adding their own rude commentary from the sidelines as their commander only just resisted the urge to flatten the frightened little constable assigned to apply the blue-and-yellow chequered piping.

"…so that was you this whole time?" Jazz challenged, sitting across from the red Seeker with a flask of energon and a teasing grin. " 'Angel' and you are one and the same machine?"

Starscream smirked, and his blue optics twinkled wickedly. "What, disappointed that a Decepticon was better at noble self-sacrifice than the Autobots?"

"Oh hardly. You're just… not going to be able to use that _noble disguise _any more, which is kind of a shame," Jazz chuckled. "Makes it all the more amusing, knowing it was _you_ squirming under the white paint and trying not to wallop Optimus."

"Pfft." The red Seeker waved a hand, airily. "The project had already run to its natural conclusion."

"You mean, Megatron got tired of you showing him up?" Jazz intuited.

Starscream winced. "That's the basic gist of it, yes."

"So what are you going to do now?"

"Well, Megatron _already _thinks we've defected to the Autobots," Starscream reminded them, with a dismissive wave and a little smirk. "So why don't we give him something _real_ to think about, for a little while?"

0o0o0o0

"Mister Thundercracker? Sir?" Pulsar put her head around their doorway, and pulled a face at the recharging fliers. _How galling. Outranked by __the enemy__. _"You're wanted."

Thundercracker grunted softly and flickered his optics at her, then sat and swung his legs around off his berth. "Could have just paged me."

"Um, we did," she pointed. "You weren't responding."

Thundercracker glanced down at his page alert. "Oh," he commented, and rubbed the back of his helm, tiredly. "I thought that was an alarm clock."

"No, sir, it's a communications relay."

"Hnh." He picked up the last remaining cube of energon off the desk at the end of the room, and slouched his way to the door. "Say what they wanted?"

"No, sir. I think Commander Starscream wanted you." It felt awkward, referring to him like that. "I think he wants to pool information so he can arrange investigative work to better take your skill mix into account."

Thundercracker snorted, and slid past her. "You mean he's trying to reinvent the wheel…" he commented, dryly, heading his way up the corridor towards the forensics department.

Pulsar went to follow him, but… _hesitated_… in the doorway.

The purple Seeker hadn't even stirred – he was still a slumped tangle of limbs sprawling across his berth, wings protruding halfway across the room. Well, Thundercracker _had _said it'd take a percussion grenade to wake him up if he wasn't already good and ready to wake up, and it looked like it wasn't too far off the mark after all.

She smiled in spite of herself – his haughty, sneery features had relaxed into an open-mouthed, peaceful little smile, and-… Primus above, didn't he just look a total _dear_, now he wasn't snarling outrage at the world? Such a sweet, innocent little spark, an overgrown sparkling with an overblown opinion of himself. She grinned, strongly tempted to take a few stills to put up (anonymously, of course) around the station. _See how he manages to keep up the whole "fearsome aerial warrior" aura with that sparkling-sweet mug splashed up all over the building._ She resisted the urge to give him a condescending little pat on the head.

The brief amusement had distracted her from the darkness eating away at her insides. _We want one of your fliers_, the Sleeper's words repeated in her mind. It had been an orn or so since she'd seen them, and she'd been trying frantically to put off making an actual _decision_ about what to do. What little logic remained at her disposal had twisted up into a horrible conflicted mess of I've got to/I can't/if I do, they'll kill me/if I don't, they'll kill me/I need help/Primus, I'm scared.

Her conscience was weakening. She knew she ought to tell someone, but that idea alone left her paralysed with fear – they'd find out, she knew. They'd already proved they had eyes and ears everywhere, they'd find out her treachery and catch her on her patrol route, or shoot her from a distance, or even just slip poison into her energon.

She'd not spent a single night resting, so far – fighting her conscience, which insisted that she shouldn't, it was a bad thing, and her instinct for self-preservation, which insisted she should just _do it_, and she could wing an answer if challenged.

She was just too damn _scared_. Scared of the loyalists, scared of their resident Seekers, scared of her own commanders and what they'd do it they found out – trapped between a rock and a _very _hard place, running out of supplies, and running out of time. If she dithered for much longer, she'd end up backing herself right into a corner – she'd have run out of options, and then they _would_ come and kill her.

Getting Starscream had been her original plan, and the sole reason she'd taken his wingmates to find him – not only would it get him out from under Forceps' overprotective gaze, it'd also mean the surgeon herself wasn't at risk from accidentally taking the Blue. (She'd never, ever forgive herself if her friend got saddled with the same problem.) And poor brainless 'Scarlet' had been a minimal threat, without all those vorns of Decepticon training in lethality… but he'd been worthless as a trade, because he knew so little, and she couldn't possibly have expected to take the Seekers to Forceps without her jumping at the chance of repairing him. If she managed to get someone so impressively important, maybe they'd let her in on more loyalist secrets, which she could pass on to Hardline and soften the punishment she'd doubtless get for letting herself get intoxicated.

…But now he was back in the fold, it was increasingly difficult to catch him alone for long enough for her to slip him the narcotics, and she was running out of opportunities and supplies. If he wasn't in the labs and surrounded by a cluster of police scientists, then he was with one or the other of his trine, as if they didn't dare let him out of their sight any more, now they had him back. It was literally impossible to get close to him without a belligerent blue or black wing appearing in the space between him and whoever was approaching, an honour guard for the commander they thought was dead. It was so unnaturally cute, it was rather nauseating, even by Autobot standards.

So it was going to have to be one of the other two – and Thundercracker managed to rule himself out by spending most of his on-duty time up in the air, way out of reach. She'd missed her chance for today, she could hardly call him down 'for refreshments'.

Which left Skywarp. Not her first choice by a long shot, unimpressively thick-headed and hardly party to that many important Decepticon secrets, but he was fast and powerful and maybe his teleport would make up for it. There was no saying that the Boss wanted sensitive information in the first place, after all!

She dithered in the doorway. This might be her last chance. Her last chance to get through this and stay alive, to skirt past the greater disaster by the gloss on her thrusters. If only she wasn't so dithery, so shaky – so full of couldn't do it/had to. Skywarp was easily the least stable of the three, and most likely to punch through her spark casing, but equally might be the most open to new ideas, to a little gentle persuasion. And – Pit, the Blue loyalists wouldn't know _what hit_ _them_ if they had a furious Skywarp turn up on their doorstep.

The viral fractals in the cube she'd been given as her snare had such a low potency that they were almost invisible; the cube was a dingy violet, like most low-grade energon, not the infamous crackling hue of higher-potency Blue. He'd never notice, until it was too late.

She steeled her nerve, left the precious cube on the tabletop, and fled.

0o0o0o0

"_Yo, Cybertron to Skywarp. Wakey-wakey, buddy_," Jazz's voice sliced through the silence like a klaxon. "_You gonna actually join us this vorn, or what?_"

"All right all right, I'm up," Skywarp attempted to silence the communications array with a flail of his arm, but missed and sent one of Starscream's piles of neatly-stacked datapads slumping to the floor. "Can't a mech get a little peace and quiet?"

"_You've had __your__ share of peace and quiet, and __everyone else__'s share, so far,_" the voice snerked. "_Time to do a bit of work and actually __earn__ your peace and quiet. Up and at 'em, Warpy_!"

"Call me that again and I'll pull your power regulator out through your exhaust pipe."

"_My dearest Decepticon, might I remind you that you have to get up to do that, too. We'll see you in the duty room in three breems, all right?_"

Skywarp sat up and huffed to himself about what he'd like to do to meddlesome Autobots, and finally saw the little cube on the table, among the cluster of larger but significantly _emptier _energon containers. He wrinkled his nose at it. _Meagre rations from the Autobots today, I see._ Well, he wasn't about to turn down a free breakfast. _Bet TC helped himself to the Prime's share. Always thought he was starting to look fat. _

He plucked the cube up from the desk, examined it for a moment or two – puny little mouthful of nothing. It'd hardly put a dent in his deficit. Maybe someone was playing games with him, giving him sparkling-sized portions to imply he was rather juvenile himself. He gave the cube a dirty look. He _almost_ felt like throwing it in someone's face, just to show how deeply insulted at the meagre offering he was, but then he'd not refuelled in a while, and didn't feel like wasting his breakfast just to show how terribly offended at the bad joke he was.

_Oh well. Bottoms up, I guess_…

The tiny mouthful didn't half have a _kick_ to it.

"_Primus_ that stuff is strong," he choked, venting fumes in a cough. _Strong, but quite __nice__. _He smiled, wonkily, and drifted away to find whoever had called him.


	17. Chapter 17

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Seventeen**

**Disclaimer:** As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. (...Except where they're obviously OCs, which Hasbro would be silly to want to claim.)

**A/N: **there's so many things I _ought _to be doing right now (like being evil and keeping you lot guessing by not posting), but as I have been doomed to suffer a cold I'm gonna stick with the writing, for now... :models halo: Well, that or play endless "Spider Solitaire" and listen to music that makes me want to draw surreal Blue-based pictures.

This story has wormed its way far enough into my subconscious that I'm _dreaming _about it as well, now. Bah. This chapter goes a bit faster than I liked, but my brain isn't capable of improvements right now.

Apologies to those who didn't get notified of the last update – I'm not sure why it didn't email out. Maybe I broke , as it's not been emailing me any reviews either. :shrugs: Or maybe I upset their computer, as well, oh noes. I'm updating it on my livejournal as well now (and rambling endlessly like usual), anyway, in case people prefer that format.

Okay I shut up now. :sneeze:

* * *

Starscream didn't even wait to be invited before getting himself set up in the main forensics laboratory; he'd taken one glance through the doorway, and made a pleased noise at all the specialised equipment sitting there ready for him to play with. Thundercracker went with him, to lend a little moral support, and Jazz and Prowl hastily followed, mostly just to keep them from causing a riot. (Although Jazz looked like he'd gone along just so he could say that he'd gone along. If the Seeker genuinely wanted to help, then who were they to argue?)

There was the sound of something breaking and a stilted little gasp, and everyone turned to find a startled Calibrator in the doorway, hand over her mouth and a broken glass flask at her feet.

"Apparently, Cali's not met her new lab partner yet," Jazz quipped.

Starscream gave him a dirty look, then glanced irritably towards the analyst. "What?"

"I, um-… that is-…" She backed off a step or two, as if not daring pass the threshold into the laboratory. "I'd heard the stories in the news. I thought-… I mean, I heard you were…" She swallowed over her fright, came a little closer.

"Rest assured, rumours of my death are greatly exaggerated," he wrinkled a lip in disgust. "I just seem to get lucky with who I bump into."

"How _did_ you survive?" She touched hesitantly at his wingtip, then snatched her hand away, still reluctant to touch the ghost. "I saw the footage-… you were so broken up, you poor thing-!"

"A friend helped me," he confirmed, inclining his head and stepping away from the uninvited touch.

"Who?"

Unexpectedly, he shook his head. "I promised to keep them out of this. Unless they wanted in. Only seemed, ah…" he pulled a face. "…fair. After they went out on a limb for me."

"Primus alive, honourable actions from Starscream?" came Jazz's shocked observation from behind. "Am I in a parallel universe?"

"It was the description of 'friend' did it for me," Thundercracker agreed. "We can't possibly be in the same dimension as normal."

Starscream studiously ignored them.

Jazz leaned closer, and wondered, softly; "_You_ know who helped him, right?"

"Right," Thundercracker nodded. "But don't get your hopes up. I'm keeping hush-hush about it, too."

"Actually, I wasn't thinking so much about _that_. I was thinking more about what might happen to him if the Blue finds out he helped."

Thundercracker gave the saboteur a sidelong look, and pursed his lips. "I'll mention it to Screamer," he acknowledged. "It's probably a good idea to warn 'him'."

"If he meant enough for your commander to say in public that he felt a vague duty of honour to him? I'd say that was pretty much a certain."

"Aren't you going to go out on patrol?" Prowl wondered, watching the red Seeker as he bustled around the lab and investigated where everything was kept.

"What for? Those two are more than capable of doing that," Starscream disagreed, pointing at Thundercracker and the drowsy Skywarp who'd just appeared in the doorway. "It'd be a waste of my talent to have me here and not utilise it."

"But aren't you airhead fliers best placed actually _in the air_?" Prowl wondered, daringly. "Isn't that what you're always boasting?"

"I will have you know I have a background in science," the red Seeker threatened, over his wingmates' snickers. "You have more than enough fliers. I am going to work in _here_."

Thundercracker smiled, silently. Starscream was obviously back up to processor speed, at last. Not 'I'm going to help you in here', but that good old familiar commanding-officer, no-arguments-permitted-or-heeded, 'I _am_ going to work here, and _you_ will like it'.

"Cali-?" Prowl cast a glance at the analyst, but she shrugged.

"I don't mind having an extra pair of hands," she reassured. "I could do with all the help I can get."

Prowl backed down, with a soft grumble. "On your head be it if he causes a riot."

"So has anyone worked out what Blue actually is, yet?" Starscream examined the exemplar cube of Basic on the workbench, doing a big orbit around it as if reluctant to touch it. It was labelled "medium potency", and cast a sullen cobalt glow onto the scrubbed surface of the table.

Calibrator shook her head. "Not yet," she supplied. "We have a large portion of the forensics lab devoted to it, but until this all blew up we hadn't had the chance to look that deeply into it." She smiled, embarrassed, and admitted; "Until you crossed swords with them, we didn't think it was that big a deal. We guessed it'd blow over in a few dozen orns and be forgotten about."

Starscream made a non-committal noise.

"I have a lot more tests to run before I know exactly how it works," Calibrator went on. "All I know for sure is that it's some sort of non-replicating fractal viral that interferes with both a machine's higher and basal programming."

"So it messes with both your cognition and your physiology, right," Starscream nodded. "If it's a viral, why can't it just be deleted? Wouldn't an antiviral patch sort it out?"

"You'd think so," she agreed. "But the viral recrystallises, and you get more deletions…"

Skywarp settled on the table next to where Thundercracker stood, and waggled his feet, half-listening. "Wish I understood what the Pit they were gabbing about," he said.

"Eh, you and me both, Warp."

"You don't get it either?" Skywarp brightened. "That makes me feel better."

Thundercracker wrinkled his nose. "'Better'? Do you _need _to feel better?" He challenged. "Why are you in such a good mood, anyway? Didn't you just wake up?"

"Fft. Am I not allowed to be happy? Just because _you're_ a sullen old git-"

"If this is what being in constant proximity to Autobots does to you, maybe we should pack you off to spend time with them more often," Thundercracker commented, dryly. "I think I genuinely _am_ in a parallel universe. You're _far _too happy for someone who normally still wants to be in recharge, and Screamer is far too ready to help." It felt almost _surreal_, seeing Starscream bustling around in an Autobot-run lab, looking like he owned the place, wearing those strange half-Autobot decals on his wings. Rebooting his optics didn't seem to help.

"I'd agree with that," Skywarp observed. "Especially since the only place we want to go, where we actually _belong_, is the one place we're _not welcome_." He slid down from his perch, promptly tripped over his own feet, and tottered unsteadily into Thundercracker. "Oops! Sorry, TC."

"I think we need to find Warp a job." Thundercracker steadied his friend. "Being grounded so long has got him all wobbly."

"So long as that's all it is, and he hasn't been raiding my high-grade again," Starscream deadpanned.

"Would I do such a thing?" Skywarp planted an innocent hand on his chassis.

"In a word? Yes. For goodness sake, TC, get him airborne. Maybe that'll blow a bit of his stupid out."

0o0o0o0o0

Skywarp spent their entire patrol in such a distractable haze of excitement, stunts and general aerial messing about that an increasingly irritable Thundercracker called a halt to the run early. They got back to find their commander hard at work; he had loaded all the known facts into a single database, and was poring over it, adding his own thoughts as he went.

"Well?" Skywarp leaned down over his shoulder, peering at the screen as if it'd suddenly leap up and start making sense. "Have you sorted it all out yet?"

Starscream pushed him away, irritably. It was the fifth time Skywarp had done that since the pair of them had got back, and he _knew_ he was doing it just to irk him, now. "It'll be a lot easier for me to work without you venting your exhaust heat down my neck. Cut it out!"

Skywarp _leaped_ back and put his hands up in a _wasn't me, honest_ gesture.

"You know, I never thought I'd have _missed_ hearing the pair of you dicker," Thundercracker observed, relaxing as best he could manage into the little chair in the corner and quivering his wings. "But it's so nice that we finally have the status quo back."

Although intaking energon in the laboratory was technically forbidden, no-one had the bearings to tell the trio of Seekers to take their 'lunch' elsewhere, when they finally elected to take a break. They clustered at the heavy workbench at the far end of the lab, close to the windows, staring out over the city, and spent a breem or two in companionable silence.

Skywarp didn't look particularly keen on refuelling. He'd had a mouthful or two, but now just sat looking thoughtful, twirling the energon container between thumb and forefinger.

Starscream watched him for a few moments, before leaning towards Thundercracker and commenting, in a stage whisper, "I don't like that face he's making."

"Me either," Thundercracker replied, equally innocently. "I think he's gonna strain something."

For once, Skywarp didn't rise to the bait. Instead, he glanced up, and wondered, out loud; "Did anyone check that big butch femme that helped Screamer hasn't had a hand in all this stupid with the Blue?"

Starscream promptly choked on his energon. "What?" he spluttered, after finally getting his vocaliser back under control. "You're not implying _Sepp_ had anything to do with this? She's a _doctor_!"

"And? I was told a hospital laboratory could be big enough to make the stuff," Skywarp challenged. "And wouldn't that be a brilliant way to keep from being noticed? Being all self-effacing and kind and helping out the poor liddle broken-up Decepticon, who'd ever contemplate she could be the ringleader?"

"Sepp is about the most inoffensive, harmless femme I know." Starscream folded his arms. "You're barking up _completely_ the wrong tree this time, Warp."

Skywarp looked unimpressed. "So what? You're thinking the guy in charge of all this must be as big and grumpy and feckoff ugly as that tractor that gave you a walloping?"

"No, I'm thinking it's a logistical impossibility for it to be her." Starscream shook his head, irritably. "Do you honestly think she'd have time to be a drugs baroness while she was spending every free minute patching _me_ up?"

"So did she take you to hospital with her?"

"Well, no-…"

"Exactly. You didn't have an optic on her every minute of every day. She only _said_ she was at work."

"Oh for Primus sake, Skywarp. Lay off it," Thundercracker interrupted, before they could get too deep into the argument. "You're sounding paranoid."

"It's still a possibility, that's all I'm saying," Skywarp insisted, and twiddled his barely-touched energon with a little smile and a shrug. "You don't have to be so self-righteous about it all. That's the thing about science, isn't it, open-ness to new ideas?"

"If I find out anyone has been slipping Warp the happy pills, I am not going to be impressed," Starscream threatened, waggling a finger, and only partly in jest. "What do _you_ think about his idea, Calibrator?"

The analyst looked up from her work bench. "What?"

"Are you telling me you _weren't_ eavesdropping?" Starscream gave her a brows-lifted smirk, and finished his last few drops of 'lunch'.

She pouted, and averted her gaze, humbly. "Well, it was difficult not to," she defended herself. "You weren't making any effort to talk quietly."

"In which case, you should be able to answer this easily. Is there any chance a doctor could be responsible for putting Blue out onto the streets? From purely a logistical point of view, not a social, emotional point of view."

"Well, yes," she confirmed, after a moment's thought. "A medic would have ready access to the raw materials and the processing equipment, at least, and the medical knowhow to design it. So it's probably not that outlandish a suggestion."

"See?" Skywarp poked out his tongue.

"I don't know if it's worth also mentioning that we checked out all the hospitals at the very beginning, though. Our searches all came up empty," Calibrator cautioned. "On the basis of that, we guessed they must be working from somewhere deep in the underground. It's why we have so many searches running for incidents of stolen equipment, credit searches for unusual transactions, and so on…"

"Well, I'm still thinking we should do a surprise search of the house, anyway. When she doesn't know we're coming and can't hide all the goods," Skywarp commented, then squinched his optics and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Nnh."

"…You all right, Warp?" Thundercracker gave him a look.

"Yeah," Skywarp nodded, and forced a smile. "Just feeling a bit _meh_."

"Happy pills wearing off?"

"Oh, shush."

0o0o0o0o0

"There's a courier at the front desk for you," Nightsun commented, in passing, as Pulsar trailed her tired way up the ramp at the back of the building, after her shift. "And-… Primus, you look slagged. Get yourself checked over tomorrow. I don't want you on duty if you're not in good operating condition."

"I'm fine…" she argued, but without the energy to fight her corner.

"That wasn't a request from a friend, Pulse. That was an order from your superior officer," he corrected, and gave her a hard look. "Don't make me force you to get a doctor's note before you're back on duty."

"Yes, sir." She managed a half-smile and salute, but it faded before he was even out of sight down the corridor. She knew exactly what her delivery would be.

The courier, a drab little green-and-brown cycle similar in build to her own model, was swapping small-talk with the officer at the front desk. He looked like he'd seen _vastly _better days, covered in little dents and patches, but still somehow came across as remarkably chipper, and gave her a broad grin when she approached.

"Miss Pulsar?" He held out a data wafer and a registration board. "You got correspondence. Just need a signature off you."

"Um… thank you." She hesitated, briefly, then placed had right hand palm-down on the scanning board the cycle-courier was holding out. There was the descending prickle of static as it read the microscopic wear-and-tear of her armour, then a little musical bleep as it confirmed her identity. She almost wished it'd find a fault and deny she was who she said she was.

"No, no, thank _you,_" the courier chirped, placing the data-wafer into her hand and grinning so widely the Blue-deprived officer felt halfway obliged to punch him. "Good day, ladies and gents."

Thankfully, her dorm was empty when Pulsar finally let herself in, leaning with a sigh against the inside wall for a moment, before leaping to her bunk and prying a plate away from the wall by the head of the berth. Checking the content of the communiqué could wait until she'd medicated her irritable mood and jumpy physiology away; three cubes glowed sulkily back at her. Saving the dullest lilac one for Skywarp, because she knew he'd need it by the time she went and made her explanation, she picked out a riot of cobalt Ruin and just stared at it for a while. It was no easier to take – it still felt like a boot to the midsection, left her struggling with diagnostics that insisted she should purge and pumps that wouldn't let her.

It took her a breem or two to recover enough to turn her attention back to her communication.

_Enter password_, the wafer prompted, when she plugged it into the terminal at the foot of her berth. She guessed several times, trying a variety of permutations and synonyms for police, Autobot and blue, before finally guessing _Skinny,_ and it let her in.

The content of the message was even shorter than the number of keystrokes she'd wasted trying to guess the password.

_12.52.45959:22:12 Recycling plant 4, district west 19. Together. No excuses._

_Time, date, location._ She read the instructions three times over in silence before realising she didn't even know if she'd manage to survive telling him she'd intoxicated him.

0o0o0o0o0

"If _I find _you put _sucrose _in my _energon_ this morning-"

Thundercracker stared at the purple finger thrust under his nose for a moment or two, then glanced up at his ranting wingmate. "Happy pills have _definitely _worn off," he quipped, and it wasn't lost on him that there wasn't even a grumble, this time, but a _growl_. "Why would I want to do that, Warp? Stupid things like that are _your _prerogative, I wouldn't want to clip your wings by joining in," he went on.

Skywarp bristled at the sarcasm. "I'm being serious," he snapped. "It was _disgusting_."

"Define 'disgusting'?" Cybertronians had no sense of taste in the way organic creatures would define it, but they could perceive 'disgusting' easily enough. One just had to be a little more imaginative in one's descriptions.

"It was like _purge fluid._" Skywarp made a face. "It destabilised all my systems and it's given me a headache."

"You were all right earlier," Thundercracker went back to his terminal, mapping out a new route.

"Well, it's _obviously_ taken this long for the sucrose to dissolve and migrate through my filters." Skywarp folded his arms. "Maybe it was Screamer, being all sour that I was smarter than him."

"So our illustrious leader can predict the future, now, as well as being generally indestructible?"

"Look, if _you_ won't take this seriously, I'm gonna go find someone who _will_-"

0o0o0o0o0

…If only being confined to quarters wasn't so _boring._

Skywarp felt genuinely lousy. He'd roused from recharge feeling fairly normal, and spent the first few cycles feeling pretty darn great, but as time had worn on he'd gone downhill. Maybe he was getting sick with something. Maybe it was all this slumming it with the Autobots, they were making him physically nauseous with all their over-principled, ridiculous nobility. Even yelling at Thundercracker hadn't helped his mood, for once.

Whatever the cause, his pumps were jittering nervously inside him, and the last two times he'd tried to refuel, his wonky diagnostics had misinterpreted the energon as toxic. He'd managed to keep a little down at lunch, but when he'd excused himself to go 'find someone he needed to talk to', he'd been more interested in finding somewhere private to violently purge his system. Everything was operating wrong. His coolant lines had all over-pressurised, and his gyroscopes were playing merry hell with his balance. He'd walked into a variety of people over the course of the day, and it turned out that the Autobots had even less tolerance of an unsteady Seeker than his wingmates did. Thundercracker and Starscream snerked in a good-natured shove-y sort of way back at him, but the police offers just snarled and kicked him back to his temporary accommodation.

He knew he probably hadn't helped his own case when he'd told Chief Inspector Hardline in no uncertain terms to "go stick a fork in it", following the insult with a demonstration of his knowledge of the less-polite Earthly hand-gestures. He smirked to himself – in retrospect, it _had _been almost worth it, to see the police chief turn all those outraged funny colours. Arrgh, if only being confined to quarters wasn't so _boring_. Their room was little more than a glorified cell, with four berths and a rudimentary computer in the corner and absolutely no entertainment facilities _whatsoever_.

Maybe if he could slip into recharge, his own self-repair systems would correct the problems. Just needed to… to tweak the algorithms a little. Recalibrate gyroscopes against the standardised angle of his recharge bunk. Bleed off a little excess coolant and reconfigure the wonky pressure gauge that must have led to the headache. That'd work. Yeah. He offlined his optics, and attempted to relax.

He got a whole breem and a half before the doorchime jangled its impolite way into his awareness. He glared and kicked the pad to open the door, and glared through muggy optics at the newcomer. The lack of wings meant it wasn't one of his fellow Seekers, but that was as far as he could make out. "What do _you_ want, Autobot?" he grunted, trying to work out who it was without looking straight at them. Even the dim light hurt his optics, right now, and the lanky figure was scintillating with rainbow haloes.

"I'm not an Autobot, I'm a temporary Neutral, remember?"

Female. Loud. No difficulty working out who _that_ was. Skywarp made another irritable sound, and let his head drop back to the surface of his berth. The room was turning giddy circles in front of his destabilised gyroscopes. "What do you want?"

"I just came to see how you were."

"Oh, _spare me_," he growled, tiredly. "You came to _gloat_."

"No, seriously. I came to see how you were doing. I heard you weren't feeling so good."

"And wanted to gloat about it, like I said."

"No, no. I mean, I know what's wrong with you. I could help."

"…how could _you_ possibly know what's wrong with me?" he scoffed, irritably. "You're a secret medic as well as a spy and all-round fantastic super-cop?"

She made a little noise of disagreement. "No, I know because _I _brought you your breakfast."

"And it was disgusting," he growled. "What the slag did you put in it? If this is some stupid prank from you jealous Auto-dorks, it was particularly unfunny. I feel awful."

"I know. I'm sorry," she said, softly. Blue Ruin had filled her with a false courage. "It's just, um… it's just what Blue does to you, when it wears off."

He sat bolt upright. For a moment or two, he just stared, mouth open in a helpless _oh_ of shock. "…that… that was… _Blue…_?" he asked, slowly. A strange mixture of horrified disbelief and affront had widened his optics into great crimson pools in his face.

An astro-second later and it was as if gravity had inverted. She found herself on her back on the floor, jammed against the edge of one of the bunks, several tons of angry Seeker on her chest, pinning her down. He was incoherent with rage, spitting broken staccato phrases in a primitive Decepticon dialect, and had delivered a ringing blow around the side of her head before she recovered her wits enough to jerk her arms up in front of her face.

"…how dare you. How slagging _dare _you!" Words finally began to filter through the incomprehensible grinding clicks and staticky whistles. Clawing fingers strafed down her arms, grasped her shoulders, _whacked_ her head against the floor. "What the _slag_ do you think you're playing at?! Get your slagging _arms _out of the way-!"

"Please, let me explain-"

"What could you possibly have to say that would _explain_ this?!" His thumbs were pressing deep into the softer metal of her throat, trying to find and pinch off her primary communications trunk. "How _dare_ you think you can just argue your way out of this-"

"At least give me a few astro-seconds to _try-…_ look, here." She snatched the Basic out of her subspace, and flicked the cube up between them, in front of his face. "Have this, have this, please-" she managed to get the words out without them shaking. "Let me explain and _then_ you can kill me-"

His clawing fingers finally halted, tight on her wrists. "Why the _slag_ would I want _more_?" he hissed, furiously, leaning down so closely that she could feel the stifling, angry gusts from his vents. His optics were thin chips of scarlet outrage. "You won't catch me out _so easily_, this time, femme."

"Please, I promise, it's all you can do to stabilise your symptoms." She didn't move, kept the Basic in front of her face and her gaze averted. "There's no cure yet."

"I would rather stick my head in a recycling mill than have _more_ of that Primus-damned filth," he said, harshly, leaning down closer to her and planting a palm flat onto her torso. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't now rip your power converter clean out through your chest wall."

"They made me give it to you, I didn't want to share it-" she replied, and felt the pressure increase, felt a hairline fracture race across her armour and around under her right arm. The cube dropped to the floor, bounced towards the door, and somehow – miraculously – didn't shatter. "Look, I'm sorry that my principles aaaih!-… aren't as strong as _yours_!" she managed to get the words out. "They told me they'd kill me_eigh-_!"

"You should have been more worried about what _I'd_ do to you-!" Another angry shove, and the internal fracture deepened.

"To be honest, a quick death from _you_ would be far preferable to the long, slow overdose from _them_-" She squirmed under his weight, scrabbled her fingers against the floor and struggled uselessly to throw him off. "Come on, either _do_ it or _don't _do it," she pleaded. An alert had begun to sound in her mind – just a little more pressure and her chest might fracture right open-

Unexpectedly, he released her – slowly sat up, took his fingers away. His optics still blazed, but his lips had curled in a cruel smirk. "Tch, why should I let _you_ get the easy way out?" he wondered, darkly. "If _I_ have to suffer, so can _you_." Very slowly, not breaking eye contact or letting his glare soften in the slightest, he got back to his feet.

She sat up, ran her fingertips along the line of the fracture, and winced. "I didn't want to have to get you involved, but they didn't give me a lot of choice," she defended herself, feebly, keeping her gaze downcast. "If I didn't get one of you, they'd have killed me, and my principles aren't strong enough that I'd take a nasty death in preference to just doing as I was told. Especially when it comes to Decepticons."

"Don't worry, femme, I believe you," he cut in, with a cold smile. "I don't need the sob story. Can't imagine such a pathetic little bundle of wires wanting to dabble too deeply in Blue _through choice_." He positioned himself in the doorway, arms folded and chin up. "I am going to be generous and give you one opportunity to convince me why I shouldn't dismantle you with my bare hands, then turn you over to your superior with full details of your collusion with the enemy."

"It won't get you off it," she argued, softly, wincing as she crawled to her feet. "Killing me won't help. You'll still be reliant on it."

"This isn't very _convincing_, Autobot." He cracked his knuckles, for emphasis.

"And I have personal contacts," she added, hastily. "To the central players, the primary dealership. This could be a way in, to break things wide open."

His optics remained narrowed and suspicious, but his fingers began to relax. Perhaps that wasn't too bad an idea; use this to get close to the ringleader. If that was possible? If they didn't hide away and let that damn tractor and his pals do the grunt work.

"Besides, nobody has to know," she said, in a tone of voice that bordered on seductive. "You only need enough to keep your systems stable. Basic is, ah… pretty… flexible." _Unlike Ruin_. "I'm sure you noticed it improved the functionality of everything else, this morning."

It was true that he'd felt pretty brilliant, this morning. Imaginative, enthusiastic. He stared down at the cube by his feet, then stooped to pick it up – hesitantly, as if afraid it'd bite him. "Feeding an addiction is not a good way to conduct an investigation," he reminded himself, softly, even though he knew he was seriously contemplating the cube.

"If we fix this, we can get help."

"You'll forgive me for pointing out that I don't much _want_ the sort of 'help' you provide," he growled, sorely, and winced and rubbed the back of his helm. "A ready supply of Blue is _not_ what I want."

"I didn't mean that. I meant, help getting off it."

"You can't get off it," he reminded her.

"Not yet, but I have faith in our team," she lied, and watched his scrutiny of the cube deepen. "There's got to be a way, and our team will find it. Please?"

Poisoned or not, Blue was still mostly energon. And he was still running deficient. And his systems were still crying out for stability. He briefly shuttered his optics, and cursed quietly and rubbed his temples, before taking a sip.

The change was almost instant. The tired slouch in his back straightened out, and his optics took on a healthier glow. "Hnh, well, okay. It's… better. I guess," he allowed, ungraciously – his gyros had instantly settled, the pressure in his coolant lines had eased, and he felt not just _normal_ but _better_ than normal. Maybe it wasn't so bad. A small price to pay for this sharp clarity. Besides, the problem wouldn't last too long – they'd beat the producers of the Blue filth into the ground, Screamer would work his science-magic and cure the addiction, and it'd all be sorted out permanently.

She parked her aft onto the berth next to him, warily. "I can take you to the Boss, if you want."

"The who?"_ If I go along with her, I can take them out._

"The Designer. The one who created it. He wanted to see you."

0o0o0o0o0

"Hey, geeks. I'm going out for a while."

"Out? Out where?" Starscream glanced up. Skywarp was in the doorway, a peculiar, unreadable expression on his face.

"Do I have to get your permission, now, or something?" Skywarp challenged, arms folded.

"No-o, just making precautions in case we have to come out and rescue you."

"Oh ha-de-ha. I'm hardly going to get in trouble just flying around a bit, am I?"

"Knowing you, Warp, anything is possible," Starscream turned back to his equipment setup. "So where are you going, aside from just 'out'?"

"I've got a lead. I'm gonna go chase it, see where it takes me. That good enough for you?" Skywarp excused himself, with a vague smile and a one-armed shrug. "Besides, you bunch of super-geeks don't need brainless little me hanging around causing a problem and breaking the equipment."

"Not a good enough lead that you can share it with the rest of us?"

Skywarp _prft_-ed. "It's a purge-poor lead," he replied, openly. "But frag, I'm bored as the proverbial wotsit. I'm following this up to stop myself making all your samples up into one big potion and feeding it to the Auto-dorks."

Starscream gave him an alarmed look, but more to do with the potential to lose all his precious exemplars rather than out of any concern for their hosts.

"I was joking," Skywarp cast his gaze heavenwards and gave his friend a prod in the chassis. "Stop asking questions and let me get out from under your feet, all right?"

"All right, all right," Starscream waved him away, irritably; the purple Seeker was _far_ too close to the delicate setup, and he already had a habit of breaking things without having his lack of balance become a convenient excuse. "Get a move on."

Pulsar was fidgeting outside when Skywarp appeared from the station's rear doors.

"All right, femme," Skywarp's expression hardened into an unfriendly scowl. "I'm gonna fly us there – slagged if I'm going to crawl along at the speed you travel at. We're going to get there on time, I'm gonna kick someone's dental plates- no, their entire fragging _cortex _in, then we head back. Got it?"

She nodded, silently.

"Good. Just keep the frag out of my way, or I might give _you_ a boot between the optics in the process."


	18. Chapter 18

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Eighteen**

**Disclaimer:** As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. (...Except where they're obviously OCs, which Hasbro would be silly to want to claim.)

**A/N:** I should confess that a large portion of this came out of a bizarre dream I had, as I was stuck for ideas. :\ I apologise if it's too weird...

Edit: sorry for the reupload. Keaalu am can not make with the adding-up.

* * *

Recycling plant 4, district west 19, was quiet, and empty, and abandoned – certainly for several vorns at a minimum, and probably for far longer if the little clusters of flourishing green xenobiotics were anything to go by. It was the perfect place for machines to meet to discuss things that should not be discussed in polite society.

Skywarp touched down lightly in the large open area at the centre, depositing Pulsar roughly onto her feet in front of him – she was quivering, but he wasn't sure whether it was because of their speed of travel, being in such close proximity to someone who'd threatened to kill her, or that she just didn't like heights, and she seemed disinclined to elaborate.

To say the place was "creepy" was probably a contender for "understatement of the vorn". The plant had obviously gone unused for a small eternity, and the old piles of waste material intended for recycling had become loosely-defined hills, slumping into each other over time. The unkempt mills and smelters had gone oxidised with age, seizing up into crippled inactivity – Cybertron's atmosphere wasn't particularly moist, but there was apparently enough damp in the air for heavy layers of rust to have formed. Some of the oldest machines had rotted right away, in places, sagging sideways like old dead trees. Spindly little green and blue vines had even sprung up, scrambling in a bright curtain up over the worn machinery – xenoforms that had probably been walked in by some unwary scientist, before the war, had found a tenuous roothold in this deserted place, and evolved to fill a niche that had never been occupied until now.

Neither machine liked it. It felt far too much like an inorganic graveyeard. The slightest wrong move, and they'd both end up scattered like so many brightly coloured chips of junk across these old hills, being slowly chewed down into dust by alien plantlife.

"So where are these 'contacts' of yours, then?" Skywarp challenged, folding his arms, trying not to look unnerved by the choice of meeting place. He didn't charge his weapons _juust_ yet, but made sure the energy was there and the plasma coils were hot for a quick startup.

"I don't know. They just gave me the time and location," Pulsar wrapped her arms around herself, unconsciously moving a tiny fraction closer to him. (Better the devil you know, and all that.) "They'll find us. They're always one step ahead, they're probably watching us right now."

"Huh. I don't like the idea of them having the upper hand," he observed, turning a full circle and casting an efficient hunting gaze over the piles of junk. "We're already at the disadvantage, without having to be at their beck and call just to remain functional, as well."

"Well, unfortunately that's just something you're going to have to get used to," a voice said, from somewhere behind, and even Skywarp jumped. One of the pools of shadow shifted, divided into two, then there was the low _hum_ of power-convertors, and the smaller inkblot rippled, shimmered away…

Fatigue emerged from behind his baffle, and his smirk was spread all the way from one audio vent to the other. "And my, look who it is. My _favourite _little Seeker. You want a rematch, love, or shall we just get straight to business without me having to grind you into the ground first?"

Skywarp _twitched_, and flexed his fingers into fists at his side. "I seem to remember you _running away _last time," he pointed out, and was satisfied to see more than a flicker of irritation pass through his rival's face.

"I seem to remember _you_ could barely stand up."

"…and I _still_ managed to thoroughly kick your aft." Skywarp lifted his chin and stared defiantly up at him. "What exactly do you _want_?"

"What do you think I want?"

"I won't play your games, Fatty. Just come out with it."

"Well, unless I'm very much mistaken, you have a small problem," Fatigue said, smoothly. "And you won't find a solution to that problem unless you come with us. We'll… _discuss_ matters. Come to an agreement of some sort."

"You're referring to the Blue," Skywarp guessed, flatly.

"Of course. We're _honoured _to finally have you on our 'payroll'," Fatigue swept down into a mocking bow of fake respect.

"Only through sneaking and trickery," Skywarp snapped, defensively.

"Like any good Decepticon," the giant added, sweetly.

"No. Not _at all _like any good Decepticon," Skywarp argued, irritably. "We give people a _choice_."

"Oh, so now you're all noble values and honour." The caterpillar tractor made a face that could have been best described as rolling his optics. "Well, come on, _Sir Seeker_. We can't be keeping the Boss waiting." He bowed and gestured to where Deuce stood waiting at the head of a narrow aisle between junk-heaps.

Pulsar needed no second bidding – she was low on supplies already. Skywarp was a little more hesitant about complying – Primus only knew what he'd be following them _into_ – but if he could bargain his way off this stuff, then so much the better. Fatigue took up the rearmost position, just in case either thought about making a run for it, and close enough that he stood a good chance at grabbing the flier if he got any ideas of taking flight.

"So… you know him?" Pulsar asked, softly, jerking her head very slightly backwards to indicate the tractor, as they followed Deuce down the narrow aisle between precarious heaps of debris. "He didn't say."

"We met, briefly," Skywarp confirmed, darkly, then noticed the giant was listening in, and sneered and added; "I wiped the floor with him."

"At least, he made a valiant effort at doing so," Fatigue corrected, and gave him a big affectionate _slap_ on the back of one shoulder vent that almost sent the flier sprawling into one of the heaps.

"How _is_ your nose, now?" Skywarp challenged, pointedly, easily recovering his poise. "I seem to remember you took a pretty good dive into a wall, last time we met."

"Don't push your luck." Another slap, but this time it was less 'friendly', clipped smartly around the back of his head. "Boss wants you on the payroll, but never said it had to be _in one piece_."

The central hub of the recycling plant, a vaguely star-shaped building that had once housed offices and dormitories as well as smaller refinery stations, loomed large and foreboding in front of them. It had once been a vision in glittering chrome efficiency, but now it hulked down like a giant rusting beetle, a flurry of broken chimneys jutting from its humped sides like poison quills.

Siphon was waiting just inside the entrance portal, dwarfed by the huge doors; the rusted, flaked metal fronting completely disguised the glittering new alloys that had been plated over the older surfaces just inside.

Skywarp hesitated very _very_ briefly in the doorway; looked pretty dark, and pretty _confined_ in there… No Seeker particularly enjoyed being confined in places where there was no sky visible, and itty-bitty spaces like this were avoided at all costs. He quickly recovered, though – squared his shoulders, set his jaw, and strode boldly through the entrance. Wouldn't do to let on too much to them about what pressed the wrong buttons, for him. Bad enough they'd got him snared with that disgusting Blue stuff, giving them ideas about his phobias would just compound their hold on him.

"Welcome, friend," Siphon greeted, bowing amusedly. "We were laying bets on which of Megatron's Mighty Defectors our little spy in the nest would snare."

Pulsar sensed a hostile crimson glare on the back of her neck, and averted her gaze.

Siphon shrugged, and smirked. "…We figured it would probably be you."

"I hate to disappoint," Skywarp muttered, sourly.

"We have need for your skills," Siphon explained, seriously, once he was sure he had Skywarp's attention. "Join us, and we'll make sure you are well rewarded and well respected. Fight us, and, well… your options will become somewhat limited."

"When you say 'join you', you mean embrace this addiction like you lot clearly have, and denounce any loyalty I have towards my wingmates and my faction?" Skywarp guessed.

"You say that like it's such a _bad _thing." Siphon feigned a hurt tone of voice, woundedly touching his fingers to his chest.

"But you're biased."

"If you mean we all use Blue, of one variant or another, then you're correct," Siphon confirmed. "Fatigue takes Prophet, Deuce prefers Ruin, and I'm more the Basic sort. But it doesn't interfere with our daily operations, because we don't let ourselves run down to vapours, like Skinny over there insists on doing. If she used the product as it was designed, instead of trying to fight it, she wouldn't keep messing herself up."

Pulsar cringed back away from him, shamefaced.

"Of course, we anticipate – nay, expect – that you will require perhaps a few orns to make the decision that is most mutually acceptable," Siphon went on, sweetly. "We have plenty of facilities here for you to use while you think it over."

"I think you misunderstand – there'll be no difficulty in coming to a decision," Skywarp corrected, with a forced smile. "Because it's 'no'. I want off this project of yours. Now."

"Oh, I think _you_ misunderstand, friend Seeker," the tanker oiled. "The emphasis was on the _mutual_ acceptability of the decision. We can't just let you amble away with the knowledge you have."

"What exactly led you to believe that I would find _anything_ about this 'mutually acceptable'?!" Skywarp flexed his hands. "You've got me _here _through trickery, you've got me _reliant on your poison _through trickery, you beat my wingmate to within an inch of termination, and let's not forget that you're trying to usurp the Decepticon position in society, and now you seem to think I'll just _forget _all that and agree to whatever nonsense you're trying to get me to agree to?!"

"Listen, you dopey airhead," Fatigue broke in, irritably. "One way or another, you'll work for us. The amount of _choice _you get is entirely down to _you_. Accept the proposal, and things will be easy. You'll get to keep your privileges, respect, autonomy, and so on." His optics narrowed. "Keep on _fragging about _the way you are at the moment, and we'll give you somewhere nice to cool your afterburners while you things through." He paused, for effect. "Oh, and we'll only give you a short leash, so we can be sure we know what you're up to."

"So it essentially boils down to the one option, right?" Skywarp lifted his chin, trying to maintain the aura of aggressive, arrogant flier. Just to remind them who they were messing with. "We'll do whatever it takes to get you onto the programme, and if it takes exotic semantics to disguise our meaning, so be it?"

Fatigue leaned down closer to Deuce and murmured, softly, clearly not anticipating Skywarp would hear him; "before we can even try and get anywhere by reasoning with him, we're gonna have to get him appropriately subdued-"

"Subdued? I'll show you _subdued_!" Skywarp howled, and flew at him.

Pulsar scrambled cover behind one of the old drums. She hadn't expected the violence to flare quite so quickly, and didn't want to be caught up in it – she was built lightly enough that a kick that would just _dent_ one of the males would probably break her right in half.

Skywarp was every bit as hard to keep hold of as they remembered. There wasn't the space for him to fly, but the instant he got past the walls – because he'd surely worked out by now that the plating was interfering with his triangulation as well as his communication – he'd be gone. They had to keep him _inside_… he was clearly aiming for the door, but Deuce got in his way, hefting a bit of old steel like a bat. A badly-placed blow across the lower margin of the wing got the Seeker tumbling in the opposite direction, but now the flier had charged his weapons relays and was bristling with laser fire.

For a few moments, nothing managed to make an effective connection with any of the loyalists, but then a shot clipped a vital support strut and topped on old gantry down square on Fatigue's broad head. He gave an _oof!_ of effort and staggered beneath the weight, dazedly, gyroscopes smacked offline, out of the fight for now.

Skywarp had no time to spare on gloating. Deuce was back in the fray, trying to get to his wings, and Siphon was directly opposite, behind the Seeker, struggling to get a clean shot into his motor trunk, at the junction where his neck met his fuselage. Skywarp was constantly moving, though, dodging unpredictably and strafing his own laser fire down across them, working his steady way to the door…

Fatigue was predictably resilient – he squared up his gyroscopes very rapidly, recovered his balance, and poised to get back into the thick of the fighting – but also surprisingly speedy, for a machine so large. He lunged back into the offensive before Skywarp had collected enough of his wits to counter him, and delivered a hammer blow from one massive fist to the underside of his jaw. The Seeker promptly collapsed in a jumble of limbs, the impact destabilising his cortex and briefly offlining his cognitive processors.

"All right, quick." Fatigue snapped off commands. "Hitch, go find a welding torch. Siphon, Deuce, go get the room ready. I'll bring our troublemaking 'ally' along…"

Skywarp made little delirious noises as Fatigue peeled him up off the floor by one arm, and the giant felt a flicker of dismay at the idea he'd actually broken him properly. There was no way they'd somehow succeed at getting another Seeker, especially not the way they'd snagged this one. The other two were far too bright to be caught out with tainted fuel.

"Ought to cut these damn wings off of you," he groused, manhandling the Seeker into his arms and slinging his limp form over one shoulder. "How the slag you live a normal life with these great flat lumps of metal sticking out of you, getting in your way all the time, I have no idea. Buuut, the Boss wants a flier, so I guess we'll just have to work around it…"

0o0o0o0

Skywarp finally started coming around a breem or so later, once his gyroscopes had finally settled and the electrical disturbance to his shock-destabilised cortex evened out. Everything felt-… odd. Wrong. His gyroscopes suggested he was upright, but he couldn't feel anyone supporting him. His cannons had deactivated, and there was some sort of baffle keeping commands routing through to reactivate them. And there was the flicker of white light in the corner of his vision, and a thin _crackle_ of high, sharp sound. At first he assumed it was a sensory fault, but reconsidered. It wasn't static – he was familiar enough with _that_ recently. Sounded like… was that sparks? And what was that _hissing_?

The world came back into focus with all his weight supported from his wrists, high above his head, and the bright, low hiss of an acetylene torch in the background. _That_ woke him up properly. "What in the-?!" He lurched the rest of the way to his feet, and jerked at a wrist. Heavy chains _clanked_ ominously.

"Oh, good, you _are_ all right," Fatigue cooed, watching as the Seeker conducted a very brief and frantic examination of his arms, and discovered a tight band of thick chain wrapped twice around the narrowest portion of each wrist, patches of weld keeping it tight. "I began to think I hit you too hard. Primus knows you little fliers are so _delicate._"

The Seeker made an inarticulate noise of shocked anger and lurched at him, but the chains pulled him up short. "You let me go at once!" he shrilled, alarmed, sounding uncannily like Starscream for a moment. "Right this instant, you hear me?! Let me go!"

Fatigue chuckled. "Looks like our little Seeker thinks he's in a good position to be making demands. Isn't that just…" Beat. "…_adorable_?"

As if he'd been waiting for the cue all along, Skywarp made a strangled little noise of outrage and threw himself uselessly at the tractor. "I _swear_ I'll get you for this…!" But the links clanked with a despairing finality at his wrists, and his clawing hands flexed impotently above his head. "How _dare_ you treat me like this-!"

"Well, we gave you all the options you needed, and you didn't want 'em, so we revised things a smidge," Fatigue shrugged. "Now you have _two _choices. Either you quit whining and just take your medicine the easy way, or we'll wait until you're hungry enough to see some sense."

"Don't get your hopes up for a short wait, _Fatty_," Skywarp countered, leaning as close up to the broad face as the restraints would let him. "I don't know what your usual 'customers' are like, but you won't find _me_ so easy to deal with."

Fatigue smiled. "Is that so? Well, we'll see. Come on, lads, we'll leave him some time to think-…"

Skywarp snarled, inarticulately. Oh, How. _Dare_. They. Even with his arms pinned, he had one last trick in his subspace, just enough to prove he was no kitten – he twisted his wrists to grab onto the chains and tucked his feet up, supporting himself from his bonds, then _kicked_, strongly.

Half-Hitch gave a gasp of shock and collapsed; the powerful blow from one of the flying heels had clipped him in the small of the back, where the armour was thin, and severed most of the way through his motor trunk.

"Primus alive-!" Siphon leaped out of reach, tripping over Deuce.

"What in frag's name-" Fatigue's smirk fell off so fast it was as if it had been greased. "How the Pit-… _Primus, _are you gonna regret that-!" He balled his fists, came closer…

Skywarp seized his chance, and lunged for Fatigue the instant the giant had got within range-

-Fatigue howled in pain and jerked back, but the Seeker clung on like a particularly tenacious purple attack dog, his dental plates clamped down on one sensitive antenna, thrashing his knife-edged heels at the tractor's flanks and abdomen, determined to tear _something_ off, if at all possible.

Fatigue bellowed in undisguised outrage, delivered a punch to his assailant's nose (which had absolutely no effect on the sharp plates that had clamped into his delicate sensory array), then flung his weight backwards and felt the low _shhhrrp_ as the antenna came clean away, trailing wires.

Skywarp bared his denta, triumphantly, clutching the dismembered part between them. "Ha!"

"All right!" Fatigue roared, infuriated. "All right, I've had enough. I am _completely out_ of patience! Deuce, Siphon, grab his feet. We're just gonna have to give him _no more options_ apart from doing exactly what we say, to the damn letter!"

"But Fatigue," Deuce eyed the wicked thrustered feet that had done such easy, crippling damage to Half-Hitch. "What if he gets me-?"

Skywarp hissed warningly at him, mostly for effect..

"I don't remember you being such a damn coward before," Fatigue snarled, and shoved him bodily out of the way; Deuce sprawled inelegantly over Half-Hitch, who lay still watching quietly by the door. "Fine, I'll do it. The pair of you, go get the torch-"

Skywarp's first wild kick sent a fracture racing all the way from Fatigue's elbow joint to the front of his shoulder, and the second snapped his little finger the wrong way, but Fatigue got lucky and managed to secure a hold on his foot on the third flail, and it was all downhill from there. The purple Seeker's angry yells and shrieks would have done a banshee proud; he struggled valiantly, but Fatigue had the edge when it came down to strength, and easily trapped his flailing legs in a crushing parody of a hug while Deuce carefully looped chain around each of his ankles and Siphon secured it with those little dabs of acetylene weld. The ends of the chain were in turn secured to the floor – not quite closely enough that he could touch his feet together, but with enough slack that he could shift his weight about a little.

"You can't leave me like this," Skywarp insisted, grimly, and rustled the heavy metal links across the floor. "You can't just leave me like this!"

"Oh, we'll come back, in maybe a _vorn _or two," Fatigue snapped, holding the door while Deuce shuffled out, dragging Half-Hitch along, holding him under his arms. "Maybe you'll have learnt some manners, after that long, although I ain't holding out a whole lot of hope."

Then the door _banged_, a booming thunderclap of sound that made Skywarp wince and his audios ring in pain, and then… silence.

_And it's kinda dark in here_, Skywarp noticed, unhappily, putting a little more power behind his optics, wondering if the light would help. The high beam of brilliant crimson struck out into the gloom, brightening one patch and deepening the shadows everywhere else, and reflected sullenly back off black plate wall that seemed to be closing in on him in front. He flinched, involuntarily, in spite of knowing the walls weren't moving at all – it was just his optics, playing tricks. That was all. Just his optics. Right. He offlined his visual array, but that didn't make it much better.

He shuffled his feet against the floor, and the low _clank-clank_ of his restraints seemed muffled, dampened by the heavy walls. The dark itself seemed to flatten all the sound out. The dark was suffocating, smothering, as if the walls had closed right down on him. His cooling fans sounded inappropriately loud. All the sounds from outside had vanished – he might as well be trapped under a mountain. He forced himself to imagine that he was actually outside, under the endless sky, not so far away from it – _so far_ away from it.

His vents were puffing noisily. How long had he been in here anyway? He had to have been joking when he said he'd leave him here for a vorn. Had to have been. They couldn't possibly leave him here in this little blot of shadows for ever. He tugged on one arm again, wondering if he could pop the tiny welds that held the chain closed, but the weak points seemed to be in the wrong places for him to get his flagging strength behind. There was just more muffled jangling, quieter than last time. _Have to get out._

"…let me out…?" a little voice asked, faintly, and it was only after a moment or two of thought that he recognised it as his own.

0o0o0o0

The tractor was attempting temporary repairs on his antennae when she finally tracked him down.

Those Unicron-damned Seekers and their stupid ideas._ Ow, _did his head ever hurt. And he was effectively deaf on one side now. Not all the wires that had been yanked out were solely related to his auditory relays, either. Damn that fragger to the Pit. It'd take major repairs, for such a piffling injury-

"Sl-… Fatigue?" a soft voice spoke up from behind.

Fatigue glanced down at the reflection in the mirror, and curled his lip in a sneer. "What do _you_ want?" he didn't even turn to look at the shaky Policebot behind him, just watched her via the reflection.

"I've… run out of my… 'medication'," she replied, faintly, one arm wrapped around herself, rubbing the palm of her left hand against her hip, trying to get rid of the twitchy feeling in it.

"And…?" the tractor prompted, twisting tiny blobs of adhesive tape around the raw ends of wire jutting from his torn antennae.

Pulsar noticed he didn't sound particularly friendly. "I-… I need… You said you'd resupply if I brought a Seeker-" she tried, faintly.

He stared down on her, and shrugged, casually. "You haven't complied with our instructions, femme," he corrected, softly, examining the tape, and elevated his voice a smidgen to be heard over her protests. "What we _said_ was that you would need to have a Seeker with you, _ready to take his next orders from us_. Now does _that_," he gestured backward at the door that separated them, "look like he is even _remotely_ ready to be taking any instructions from us?"

"But-… but he's _here_, doesn't that count?!" The fracture around her torso had begun to ache at the memory of having the angry Seeker on top of her. "Getting him just to come with me almost killed me-"

"Look, you'll get your medicine when he starts to behave," Fatigue grated, softly. "You can either wait it out, or else you can try bribing him into co-operating, if you can't wait that long."

She cast her gaze at the closed door, and retreated back away. She was the _last _person the Seeker would want to see, and the last person he'd even _dream _of being bribed by. "...I-I'll wait," she agreed, hoarsely.

"Good girl." A massive hand gave her head a mocking pat for good behaviour, and almost drove it down between her shoulders. "Now don't ask again."

0o0o0o0

Something strange was going on with the Blue samples.

Starscream had slipped away from the lab and down to the cold store, where the bulk of the Blue was being kept, determined to get to the bottom of things. All the Blue he tried to test was so contaminated it was worthless – Calibrator's analyses all recorded something so pure and clean it was hard to believe it was so dangerous, but all the samples he had to work with were disgustingly filthy. He was on the hunt for a clean sample.

An expert fiddle with the lock, the insertion of a couple of wires in exactly the right places and a flick of a switch, and the door _pssh_-ed softly and depressurised. He smirked triumphantly at the little cloud of vapour that rolled out across the floor, then hooked his fingers around the chilly edge of the door and pulled it open.

The shelving inside was mostly empty; it was probably an old evidence locker, hastily turned into a refrigerator to keep the Blue stable. The shelves at the far end twinkled, however, and threw a sickly cobalt glow into the interior – there were three layers of shelves with ruthlessly neat lines of little samples, all sorted by colour, potency, age, all ready for use. Starscream permitted himself a wry grin – a femme after his own obsessive-compulsive heart. (The ordering could admittedly stand to be revised, as this didn't make a lot of sense, but that could wait. Besides, Cali would probably go into a panic and change it all back.)

He ran his fingers along the edge of the shelf as he inspected the eye-level samples; all were labelled up with tiny sticky labels written in Cali's tiny handwriting with variant name, where it had been confiscated from, and when. Most of these had already been tested, he knew, but with luck he'd be able to find a fresh batch. He picked up the analytical device he'd jury-rigged from the lab equipment, thumbed the lid off the closest sample, set the stylus-thin probe into the liquid and watched as the numbers cycled on the readout screen, finally coming up with 'amber' level contamination.

Hm. He pursed his lips, thoughtfully, wiped the probe clean on a microfibre cloth, tried the next. He'd assigned a ranking system of contamination, 'green' being solely the fractal Blue intoxicant in good high-grade, 'amber' being additional chemicals like analytical reagents from the earlier testing, 'red' being all the way to low-grade energon and particulate matter. The first few containers were contaminated to amber level, as he'd guessed. So were the next. And the next were all the way into the red. He made a disgruntled face, his optics narrowing. There had to be some greens here _somewhere_. He dipped the slim probe into the next cube along, running out of samples on this shelf to test, and watched the numbers on the handheld reader cycle slowly for a moment or two. _Contaminated_, came the report.

_Again?_ _Primus, this is getting beyond a joke. _He rubbed the back of his neck, irritably. _Am I just misinterpreting her results? The first samples were clean as the acid-washed analytical flasks they were stored in – no impurities, nothing, just high quality energon, and that weird fractal intoxicant. _He moved along to the next shelf and the next sample. _Maybe that was a fluke. Maybe street Blue genuinely _is_ this filthy. _

_Or maybe…_ the thought made him scowl. _Maybe shoddy labwork has just spoiled the samples. Never trust a police officer to do a real scientist's job._

"Well well, what have we here?" a familiar voice intruded on the quiet. "One little Decepticon, caught with his fingers in the till. What exactly are you playing at, Starscream?"

"Not that I feel obliged to explain my actions to _you_, Autobot – not that you'd understand the subtle nuances of the science anyway – I wanted to find a sample that the forensics lab here hasn't contaminated beyond useful analysis," Starscream admitted, glaring over his shoulder at Prowl, sounding more irritable at having to reveal his plans than being caught. "But they've contaminated the whole batch. Nothing here is remotely usable."

"What do you want it for?" Prowl chased. "There's more than enough raw material here for you to work with."

"See, I _said_ you wouldn't get it," Starscream waved the stylus, angrily, and went back to his testing, crouching by the lower shelf. "I need a _clean _sample. I need to see what's on the streets, not this lab-garbled stuff we have in here. If I base a cure off _this_," he waved a hand at the spread of sullen cobalt, "I risk basing the cure off the wrong intoxicant, and wasting orns of time getting back on track."

"Hmm," Prowl considered, for a while, then – completely unexpectedly – offered; "how about I see if I could find you some?"

"What?" Starscream looked back up, his scowl being replaced by a curious pout.

"Well, you can hardly go, can you?" Prowl challenged. "They think you're dead. If they find out you're not, they may try again."

"Tch, what is this nonsense? 'Care for your pet Decepticon' day?"

"Oh, hardly. I just don't want the collateral damage on my conscience when they try to get at you, because it occurs to me that they don't seem the sort to just give up if there's something they want and don't have."

"Hm. Well, you know, I _have_ got quite good at pretending to be someone I'm not, and like you say, they already think I'm dead," Starscream reminded, amusedly. "A lick of paint and they'll probably never know."

"Possibly – but there's not many of your kind about here, right now, are there? It'll only look suspicious."

"They didn't suspect last time."

"That's as may be. Best we err on the side of caution – who else are we _possibly _going to find to cure the thing if you get yourself incapacitated?"

The last had been intended as sarcastic, but Starscream either didn't see it or – more likely – ignored it. He nodded modestly. "Well, that is true. I _am_ the most competent scientist here. All right, Autobot. If you can find me some new supplies, it would be most useful."

0o0o0o0

With nothing else to do, Pulsar had settled outside Skywarp's closed door, legs crossed, and rested her chin in her hands. She was a confused muddle of emotions – resentment, fear, shame, even a flicker of sympathy for the poor Seeker behind the door. Not _all _the sounds that had spilled mutedly around the edge of the door had been nasty curses or the crashing noises of useless struggle – some had been the thinner, quieter, fracturing mumblings of someone trying not to let their phobias betray their confidence. Fatigue and co would never have bothered to listen to him in the first place, and she felt oddly obliged to keep her own counsel; blurting out that the Seeker sounded more than a little claustrophobic might have earned her a reward in the short term, but it didn't seem worth it.

"Guilt is a terrible affliction to have, isn't it, little femme?" Fatigue snickered, in a parody of concern, and patted her head, as he strolled up to check on their prisoner.

She glanced up at him, as he stabbed in the entry code on the doorpad, and briefly considered a catty comeback, but remained silent. Wasn't worth adding more grief to the pile. Besides, his comment wasn't so far off the mark. She'd dragged Skywarp into this, and had been an idiot to think he'd just _accept _it.

It had taken a cycle or so of frenetic activity, but Skywarp had thrashed and flailed himself into a near-torpor in his attempt at escaping. He'd worked himself like a dervish, determined to somehow _somehow _get out, get out from the conflicting crushing dark and the tight little walls and back into open spaces and broad skies, and only succeeded at fairly comprehensively exhausting his fuel reserves.

He hung slack in his bonds, weight resting back down on his abused wrists, and glared with an exhausted, neurotic kind of _hate_ at them as they entered the room, lacking even the spirit or energy to smirk triumphantly at the lopsided vision of Fatigue's still-missing antenna.

He'd been surprisingly imaginative in his efforts at escaping, but ultimately it had proved futile – the duranium chain had proved tougher than he was. His ankles were just too far apart for him to use the white heat from one thruster to melt through the pinion on the other leg. Even if he'd got his feet free, his wrists were still caught – he flexed his hands angrily and jerked hard on the short chains, but his wrist plates were dented already.

"This is your last chance, flier," Fatigue said, softly, leaning down closer – just out of range of another bite. "See sense and start to talk politics with us, or we'll leave you alone for a little longer, to think things through.

"You are not going to intimidate me into anything," Skywarp repeated, quietly.

"But I'm sure you could do with a little drop of fuel, by now,"

"I'm fine, _thank _you. I don't need your tainted sympathies."

Fatigue shrugged, loosely. "You'll change your mind."

"Don't get your hopes up too high."

Siphon caught Fatigue's arm and tugged him away. "Just give me the nod, Boss," he suggested, quietly. "I'll get him to take it, the same way we did Skinny."

"No, not this time," Fatigue shook his head. "I want him to take it of his own conscious volition. I want him to be forced to admit we're his superiors. I want him crushed by knowing he has to rely on what we provide." He let his lips pull up into a smirk. "Taking it will acknowledge our dominance over him. And _that_ is the lesson I want him to learn."

"He'll never do it now you've spilled the plans while he's in auditory range-"

"Oh, I think he will. And _that_ will make the victory so much sweeter, when he finally acknowledges that we were _right_."

"There's only one thing that's _right_ about you, and that's the side of you that isn't the left," Skywarp cut in. He'd summoned the energy to get back to his feet, properly, and was again somehow managing to give off the aura of unbowed, unintimidated Decepticon elite. "You will not get me on your side. And you will not get me willingly taking that filth."

"Aw, you still don't wanna take it? Don't even want to talk about it with us?" Fatigue sighed an exaggeratedly long-suffering sigh, and feigned a deeply dismayed face, peeling a pre-cut length of adhesive tape up off his forearm. "Fine…"

He lunged, and slapped the length of tape firmly down over Skywarp's mouth, and wrinkled his lip in scornful amusement as the thrashing became a renewed attempt at a startled escape, as if the flier could somehow _buck_ the gag off himself. Purple feet scrabbled uselessly over the floor, throwing up a shower of bright sparks.

The tractor sneered haughtily down into the crimson optics that had widened into startled pools. "Now you _can't_ do either. We'll see how co-operative you are tomorrow morning."

Skywarp managed a muffled _mmmh!_ of furious alarm, leaning forwards into his restraints and not even bothering to keep the pleading look out of his blazing optics.

"Quite the _angry_ little button, isn't he?" Siphon commented, innocently, from the doorway, as Fatigue slipped past him and back into the light. "Are you sure one night will tame that volatile spark?"

"Perhaps you're right, perhaps we ought to leave him a little longer," Fatigue mused, thoughtfully. "We'll give him a few orns to start with, see if he's gonna talk sense after that. Blue deprivation might convince him where his allegiances would best lie."

There was a jangle and a muffled noise of blind rage, and the shriek of thrusters being ground against an unyielding floor, but nothing else. Then the door closed anyway.


	19. Chapter 19

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Nineteen**

**Disclaimer:** As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. (...Except where they're obviously OCs, which Hasbro would be silly to want to claim.)

**A/N: **Phew, I never imagined this would end up even HALF as long as this, and I'm nowhere near done. :boggles:

Many, many thanks again to those lovely people who have reviewed. :) I'm trying to keep up the pace and keep it interesting, but poke me with a stick if it looks like it's going off at a tangent. I have my ending planned - still some way to go before I get there - and I hope I can keep it a vague surprise for you all. ;)

I apologise, this would probably have been up a day sooner if I hadn't discovered 1920s jazz in my NaNoWriMo research and got this itch to draw certain characters doing the Charleston. ¬¬ Potential for great silliness here, I think. I think there's a couple of 'em who'd look great as gangsters… :ponders: Although the violin cases for the weaponry might be a bit much. Hm, I could call it a hallucination, ye-ess…

OKAY that's enough caffeine-influenced rubbish. This is what on-call does to me.

* * *

_What's the time?_

_How long have I been in here for now? _

_Can't feel my arms any more. Is that just a fault because I'm so damn tired, or have they fallen off altogether? _

_How long have I been in here now? Oh Primus, just let me see the sky once more. _

_Are the walls still closing in? No, mustn't look, mustn't check, in case they are. If I don't look, it'll be fine. What you can't see can't hurt you. It'll all go away if I ignore it. The walls can't be moving, anyway, that's just an overactive imagination. Still, I better just ch- no don't check. _

_Suffocating. It's so hot and constricting and stuffy. Can't even tell if my vents are working, nothing seems to be cooling properly. Maybe I've already burnt half my relays out, that's why it feels so stifling._

_What's the time now? How much longer are they going to keep me in here?_

_How far underground am I, anyway? I wasn't awake when they brought me in, I could be _miles_ deep. All those miles and miles and tonnes and tonnes of ancient rocks and dirt and… oh Primus, what if I dislodge something? Make it all fall in? Didn't ought to move. Not even a tiny bit. Just in case._

_How long have I been down here now? Have they forgotten I'm here? What if they've forgotten about me? What if this was all just a big elaborate burial ritual for meddlesome Seekers? Primus, oh Primus let me out-! They'll dig out a frozen corpse, all grey and dark and spark-less, flattened into nothing by all that constricting dirt-_

_Are my arms still there? I still can't feel them. Primus. I'll be in bits when they finally get me out…_

_How long have I been in here? It's so dark. My chronometer can't be working right, I must have been in here longer than that. Alone with these nasty tight walls. _

_Stop shaking, now, there's a good little Seeker. That's it, there. No need for that sort of nonsense. Call yourself a Decepticon? Nothing to be scared of. It's just a little bit of dark. Dark, and a tiny, itty-bitty little room, all tight walls, all closing in around me, suffocating, stifling-_

_…let me out. Oh Primus, please let me out. Let me out let me out letmeout letmeoutletmeOUT-_

0o0o0o0o0

Pretending to be an addict was harder than Jazz had at first figured. He'd taken over from Prowl in the Hunt for Clean Blue, after pointing out that pretending to be an addict while you had "Police" written all over you was probably inviting disaster, and after taking advice from Starscream about the best place to find addicts who might know about getting supplies (that alone boggled his mind – _advice _from _Starscream_), he'd headed down the Accident and Emergency department. Getting permission to make discreet enquiries to the addicts was easy – the harassed little doctor in charge of the department had barely even heard the question, it seemed, gave a distracted agreement then waved his arms and hustled Jazz out of his office.

It was the addicts themselves that were causing the problem. They seemed to instinctively know that something was up, because the first couple wouldn't even speak to him – kept their tired optics averted, arms around themselves, quivering silently on their berths, withdrawing hard. His inexperience with how addicts behaved meant that he sabotaged _himself_ with the first patient he found that'd actually talk to him.

"Hey, uh… can you help? I need a new supplier," Jazz 'admitted', quietly, sidling up to the addict. "Mine, ah… ran into some trouble."

The shaky machine glanced up at him, and his optics glittered feverishly. "H-how come y-you're not withdrawin'?" he demanded, quietly.

_Aw, slag,_ Jazz cursed himself. "Oh, I made sure I had some spares, stockpiled," he tried, but already knew he'd lost this one.

"R-rich mechs like y-you shouldn't be on the B-Blue program," the addict groused, bitterly. "Y-you're what we was g-gonna make a stand ag-against."

Jazz's second attempt was similarly foiled by one tiny mistake – Blue withdrawal made a machine shake _bodily_ before the stutter came through in the vocaliser. Third attempt, though, and he had the routine down perfect. He wrapped his arms around himself, as if to keep himself from shaking to pieces, vibrated his motors on just the right frequency, and affected a pathetic stutter in his voice as he sidled sneakily up to an addict in a corner berth, mostly hidden behind pale green curtains.

"They're gonna k-kick me out of here," he whispered, to the sick-looking machine curled on the berth, fighting his own shakes. "An' I d-don' know wh-where to go, any m-more. My sup-supplier ran up against the Fuh-Fuzz, g-got arrested."

"Same hap-happened to me," the addict replied, quietly, and Jazz was about to kick himself and give up when the broken machine went on; "you have-… have to go h-higher up."

"What do you m-mean?"

"Y-you want to go to The S-Source," the addict supplied, shakily, surreptitiously handing over a well-loved, well-worn data-wafer.

"The Source?"

"Uh-huh. He n-never gets caught," the addict glanced around himself, and added, in a lower whisper; "c-contact him on the f-frequency on the wafer. He'll give you date and time, and a muh-meeting place, and he'll t-tell you who he's sending to muh-meet you. G-go alone, and d-don't be late."

"Wh-what happens if I d-don't?"

The addict smiled, painfully. "Let's just s-say you don't wuh-want to find out first-hand."

0o0o0o0o0

Jazz had retreated to the small, untidy break room behind the gamma camera department, where he sat with a half mug of stale energon and contemplated his unexpected windfall. This could be a lead, or it could be disaster by another name. After all, if he did meet up with 'The Source', what'd happen? Muddled addicts were probably a whole lot easier to fool than whoever it was pushing the stuff into the market in the first place. If there was so much as a _whisper_ of trickery, they'd probably not only be gone, but change all their frequencies too.

A shockingly-orange EMT ducked through the door and ambled tiredly over to the over-used and abused energon dispenser, then collapsed into a chair that creaked dangerously under his weight. "Oh, hello?" he greeted, at last seeing Jazz opposite him, with a little smile. "Are you visiting, or the new security detail?"

Jazz palmed the wafer into his subspace. "Just visiting, I'm afraid," he replied, taking in the rash of small dents across the top of the EMT's torso. "Is that all just from the addicts?"

"Pretty much?" the giant nodded. "Some of them can be violent, especially if they're withdrawing from something like Ruin?" He took a long draught from his mug, and almost emptied it in one. "So, ah, you got what you're after, or can I help?"

"I think I'm pretty much sorted," Jazz acknowledged. "I didn't think it'd be so hard to get information out of the addicts."

"Ah, so it's police business? Heh, say hi to Scarlet from me, would you?" the giant suggested, unexpectedly, with a smile.

"…What?"

The grin widened. "Red, with wings, blue eyes? He not working with you?"

"You don't mean-… I'm not sure I understand you."

"Don't worry, you've got the idea. Best not to discuss ghosts too openly, if you know what I mean? Just tell him 'hi' from Spots, he should get it."

0o0o0o0o0

The sounds from behind Skywarp's door had stopped some time ago. Pulsar had maintained her guilty vigil outside his room long after he finally went silent, only ducking out of sight when she heard Fatigue's heavy steps in the long, narrow corridor, but Deuce was not in the mood to be denied, and easily found and extracted her from her hiding place. She guessed that must mean they needed her for something, and she wasn't looking forwards to finding out what.

The Boss had elected to pay a visit, today, to examine the prize – albeit "in-absentia". The video feed was active, but dark – all Fatigue's side were party to was the Boss's voice. Pulsar guessed she must be the reason why – didn't want the risk of her sneaking off to tell Boxer who the criminal mastermind was, after all. Typical. Without even _trying_, she'd put herself in the way of progress, _again_. If she'd not been here, Skywarp may have glimpsed something useful. Well, if he'd been conscious, perhaps.

"Deuce, out of the way. Let me see," came the unfriendly instruction, and the truck scuttled hastily out of the field of view of the camera.

Skywarp was a flicker away from descending into stasis lock altogether. His optics were offline, his hands limp, and his back hung in a slumped curl. Only the stuttering hum of his fans proved he was still online, just about. Exhaustion was keeping the withdrawal tremors at bay, at least.

There was a low critical _hmm_ of thought. "Not my first choice by a long shot," the Boss pointed out, grimly, "but perhaps his stupidity can be used to our advantage. If we can exercise a little psychological persuasion on him, we will earn the sort of loyalty he has in the past shown towards Megatron." There was a pause and a cluck of irritation. "Someone go and rouse him. We will discuss things further when he is lucid again."

"Right, Skinny, that's your call. How about you go get him back on his feet?" Fatigue 'suggested', giving Pulsar a little shove.

"Me?!" She backed straight back into him.

"Yeah, you, Policebot. Can you see any of us lot babying him back to functionality?" He snorted, fluttered his hands and coaxed her back towards the inert flier. "'Sides, if he's gonna snap at anyone, better it be someone expendable. Why'd you think we used you to get him in the first place? Now go on." The tractor lifted a foot and gave her a gentle shove to the aft. "We haven't got all orn to wait for you to quit messing about."

"But he's already tried to kill me once-!"

"Do not allow yourself to be deluded into thinking you are anything other than disposable," the Boss interrupted, in a grating hiss, and the camera stared down at her like an unfriendly, unblinking eye. "Scruffy, noisy, opinionated little _bikes _like you are ten a penny. Great steel warbirds like him are an increasingly rare breed that we must make every effort to win over, but I will _not_ risk the safety of my most loyal devotees to do so. If he snaps, it will be at someone _without value_ in the grand scheme of things."

"But can't I just-"

"I hope you remember our agreement, Sparky," Fatigue said, softly, close to her audio. "If he doesn't take it? Then neither do you. And I always wanted to find out just how long an addict can go without medication before going _completely _insane."

She cringed away from him.

"Have fun, short-aft," Deuce hooted, amusedly. "Give us a yell when you got him operational again!"

For an interminable time she hung in the doorway, paralysed with indecision. Part of her wanted to help, purely so she could selfishly feed her own addiction. Part of her wanted to help because he made her spark hurt, the way he looked so sad and broken. Part of her felt _obliged _to help, since she and she alone was responsible for dragging him into this whole mess. And of course, part of her wanted to run away and get herself lost in the deepest bowels of the city, where neither Fatigue nor the Police could find her, and eke out a living on whatever puny quantity of Blue she could beg, borrow or steal off her fellow addicts.

"Skywarp…?" she half-whispered, from a distance, as loudly as she dared, and he twitched his fingers. She wasn't sure if that meant he was trying to regain consciousness, that she'd startled him, or he was planning to jump at her if she got close enough. Cue more dithering.

Finally she inched closer, patted one inert cheek. "…Skywarp?"

His optics flickered, but didn't remain online. The air that puffed unsteadily from his vents was stressed and hot.

"Look, I'm, uh… I'm going to take this tape off you, all right?" she told him, shakily.

His optics flickered again, and this time managed to remain online – but not their usual fiery crimson, they were a dull wine-red. She figured that in the event that he _could_ see her, she wouldn't be much more than an indistinct pale blob in the static.

She peeled at the edges of the tape, and wasn't altogether surprised when he lunged at her with a little snap when it finally came away. She managed to snatch her hand away just in time, before she could get his denta embedded in her fingers.

That flicker of fight was about all he could manage, though – his right leg skidded out from under him, unable to maintain the power to keep him standing, jerking to the limit of the chain and jolting his weight onto his already-damaged wrists. There was a brighter flicker in his optics and a soft noise of pain, but nothing more. His head sagged back down so his chin rested on his chest.

"Uh… I brought you some fuel," she offered, quietly, and waited while he processed the words.

His response was minimal, but effective. He turned his face away from her.

"Look, it… It's as clean as I could find, I promise," she pleaded, quietly. "There's only a tiny bit of Basic in it… I don't think you'll be able to keep pure energon inside you just yet."

He just kept his head turned away from her. _Don't want it._

"Please, Skywarp. If you don't refuel even just a tiny bit, you'll go into stasis lock." _And I'll go completely insane from my own withdrawal. _

"Better… _unconscious_…" He somehow found the energy to grind the words out, although they were mostly static. "…than… _addicted…"_

"I know, but that won't help anyone," she said, softly. "You can't very well crush them if you're in stasis somewhere."

There was another little flicker, and he managed to pull his head up a tiny fraction. "…unconscious… means I don'… don't have to… look where I _am_… little tiny box-" His optics flickered, searched briefly either side, feverishly.

"Will you have some of this if I promise to get you out?" she tried, clutching at straws, not knowing what else she could try if he still refused.

"…tricks."

"I'm an Autobot, remember? An annoying, over-principled little Pain-in-the-Afterburners. Why would I trick you?" _Please, please just agree. _"If you just have some of this, I promise. Away from the tight walls."

He was silent and still for a long time, and she thought maybe he'd passed out again when at last he gave a single feeble nod. Whether he saw any sense in her words or just didn't have the strength left to struggle, she didn't know, and didn't care – it was an agreement, and that was all that mattered. She cupped his chin, gently supported his lolling head and managed to get a few mouthfuls into him. He made a weakly disgusted face and looked away.

"Any better…?" she prompted, quietly, after a moment or two of silence.

He waited while the tainted energon raced through his systems, and felt the brief flickery, twittery nauseous should-I/shouldn't-I-purge sensation in his pumps as the noxious substance flushed and integrated. Strength and lucidity quickly returned, however – and even a little of that subsystem-deep fear/hatred of the dark and confined space eased. He wondered absently which way round it had been – was he _always_ this claustrophobic, or had he just over-reacted? The Blue was messing with his perceptions again.

"If by 'better' you mean 'are… khn… are you not _dead_'… then it's better," he confirmed, awkwardly.

She flinched from the anticipated snap of anger, but asked anyway. "Would you like more…?"

He was quiet for a moment. "No," he confirmed. "I wouldn't _like_ more." He hesitated, glanced up to meet her gaze. "But… I do _need_ more. I can't run for long on what I've just had. So I figure my options are pretty limited."

Strength returned rapidly, as he finished off his ration, and his core temperature began to drop at last. He gave her a look, and pleaded, quietly; "now would you _please_ get me _out_ of here…?" He gave his chains a little jangle, for emphasis.

"I'll have to find something to cut them with. There's no key."

"Just… I don't care how you do it. Just hurry up about it?"

The Policebot was gone for some breems – he began to think she may have been waylaid when at last there was the distant, low _grinding_ sound of something heavy being dragged, and she finally reappeared in the doorway with a huge, rusty pair of bolt-cutters that must have easily weighed half as much as she herself did. Her vents were puffing furiously with effort, and a heat-haze shimmered up off her shoulders.

"You're going to strain something," Skywarp pointed out, watching as she used the wall as a support to work the oversized shears up into the air.

She paused fighting with the cutters, leaning her weight against them and trapping them at the point she'd wrestled them to against the wall, and somehow summoned the energy to operate her vocaliser. "If this goes some way towards making us _even_, again, you bet I'll strain something helping you," she shivered the staticky words out, then added; "I'm not doing it out of _sympathy_."

He snorted faintly, but didn't challenge the lie.

Finally, she'd got the cutters facing the appropriate direction and up to chest level, even if her back looked like it was about to snap in two and she was puffing like a steam engine. She tottered unsteadily over to him, back bowed and swaying beneath the weight, supporting the shears against her chest. She used him in turn to prop herself up as she fought to get the jaws of the bolt-nippers up to the links. "Okay, if-… if this… doesn't work…" she panted. "I'm all out… of solutions. I'll have… to go get Deuce. …I'm sure… I can _bribe _him, some-… somehow."

She was close enough that he could feel the air that jetted from her coolant vents, and it was scorchingly hot. Spindly little thing obviously wasn't designed with heavy lifting in mind. "I was right, you did strain something," he pointed out, grimly.

"It'll… recover…" she puffed. "Damned if… if I'm gonna plead… with Deuce… without a shining-… hah, shining _fantastic_ reason." Her motors whined pathetically, but with a snarl of effort she got the shears close enough to the chain and wrestled them closed on the links. "…gah!" she exclaimed, frustratedly. "Can't… can't do it. …Don't have the-… the hydraulic power… and they're so fragging _rusty_…"

"How about divert a little of that energy that's going to your vocaliser into your arms instead?" Skywarp wondered, pithily, and stamped a thruster in impatience. "Shut up and get me _out_!"

"Yeah, _thank _you for that gem of assistance-!" Anger gave Pulsar a tiny burst of energy, and with a mosquito whine of effort she got the handles to close. "…hauuugh, damnit-" Determination only went so far, and her arms sagged. She braced herself for a flash of hurt as the tip of the falling shears impacted her toes-

There was a _pink_ as the broken link bounced off a wall, and a powerful arm closed around her chest, before she could drop the shears all the way to the floor. It trapped the cutters against her, and her against him.

"I'm not waiting while you spend the next six breems picking them back up," Skywarp explained, shakily, as she glanced up at him, startled. "After the effort it took you when you _weren't_ depleted, I'll be waiting forever if you drop them now, and I can tell you for free that there is no way in the Pit I am going to spend one more _breem_ in this tiny little hole in the ground…"

Now the first chain had been snipped, things were comparatively easy – to free his other wrist, he held one arm of the cutters while she closed the other arm, and when she finally sagged exhaustedly to the floor he took over to free his ankles, movements made jerky in his hurriedness. He literally fell over her in his haste to get out; she lurched to get out of his way, but failed to correctly anticipate which direction he was going to go and he went sprawling on top of her, both tumbling out into the narrow access corridor.

She gave a strangulated _yelp!_ of pain as his weight slammed hard against her, wrenching her chest fracture deeper. "Aigh, get off getoff-!"

He didn't get up; braced the bulk of his weight on one arm, but kept her pinned. His optics were thin chips of heightened emotion. "Wouldn't it be easy for me to just kill you now," he whispered, voice fracturing, fingers crawling down her torso to dig softly over her spark chamber. "After you got me tangled up in this, after you put me in this Primus-forsaken place…"

Her pumps had gone completely still. "…right," she managed, faintly. His face was so close to her that she could see every last tiny delicate metal leaf that made up the irises in his fever-bright scarlet optics, and it was a little like staring up into insanity personified. She figured she could probably bite his nose if she had to get him off her in a hurry, but that felt far too risky, right now, with his fingers already in the line of the fracture he'd caused earlier.

For several long astro-seconds they just stared each other out, silent except for the low cycling of overstressed vents, the clicking of overheating relays. He was still volatile and destabilised by the integrating Basic, and she was close to the point where goading him into killing her seemed the only appropriate way to escape her addiction.

At last, he sat back onto his thrusters, and allowed her to scuttle away from him. "Look at both of us," he rasped, shakily. "Look at what they've turned us _into_. And look at _you_, crawling after them like some wounded little creature, a performing animal they've _beaten_ too hard. Haven't you got even the _tiniest _smidgen of pride left?"

What could she possibly say to salvage a little dignity in response to _that_? "…no. None," she agreed, softly. "I chase their ankles just so I can keep my thoughts straight. My life is suddenly utterly ruled by where my next supplies are coming from, and what I have to do to get it." She hesitated, and gave him a guilty look. "And they won't give me any Blue until you're functioning again."

He forced a sour smile, getting slowly back to his feet. "I should have known it wasn't out of any sympathy for a filthy little Decepticon like _me_."

"Look, we're in the system, now," she added, faintly, following him up the corridor. "_Right_ inside. We could strike back at them. You could be the key to the whole thing succeeding."

"Right, and when we beat them, how long before we go completely crazy from Blue deprivation?" He didn't even glance back over his shoulder, but she knew what sort of humourless expression he'd be wearing.

"Commander Starscream is working on a cure, right? Don't you think he'll succeed?"

Whatever Skywarp had been going to retort was swallowed up when a shadow blocked the patch of light and actually made him _flinch_.

The shadow turned out only to be Siphon. "So, you're up, then," he observed, needlessly. "All right. First things first. We'll only let you out," he folded his arms, "if you're gonna be more amenable to a civil discussion."

"Your definition of discussion and my definition of it don't look much like each other," Skywarp pointed out quietly. "But yes. I'll _talk_ to you, provided we don't have to resort to hitting each other to get our points across."

"Tsh, if I remember right, you were pretty quick with your fists from the get-go, last time," Siphon snorted, but got out of the way. "You might wanna do something about your jewellery, too, before you go home."

Skywarp glanced down at the chains that still jangled at his wrists and ankles, and shared a meaningful look with Pulsar. She sighed, and resignedly went to fetch the bolt-cutters.

0o0o0o0o0

Thundercracker stirred out of recharge to find Skywarp's berth still conspicuously empty. "Still no Warp, then? What do you suppose he's up to?" he wondered, out loud.

Starscream was already awake, in the bunk above, and was laying flat on his front, poring over a medical text about psychological function and neurological relays. "Hm?" He looked up from his reading. "Knowing our little Skywarp, he's probably up to his neckplates in a whole heap of trouble," he commented, drolly. "But since he's not pinged us for help, I guessed that he could handle whatever it was."

"Do you think he's all right?"

Starscream didn't bother to look back down at him again. "Oh, probably. Knowing Warp, he's probably found something _far _better to do and hasn't bothered telling us."

"You think?"

"Why so dubious? You and I have lived with him long enough to know how he is, and it wouldn't be the first time he's spent the night in a strange berth. You know, TC, I hate to worry you, but you're starting to sound like an Autobot," Starscream teased, gently. "Or – worse still – a squishy."

Thundercracker managed a smile. "I just don't think he should have been so quiet," he explained, defensively. "If he's found something better to do, he should be _telling_ us he has, just to _gloat_ about it. You know, his usual 'you geeks are stuck working and I'm out here having a lark doing whatever'."

"Hm, fair point," Starscream acknowledged. "We'll give him until tonight. If he's not back, we'll go looking. Fair?"

0o0o0o0o0

Skywarp sat cross-legged on an old square motor-housing in the centre of the recycling plant's cavernous main vestibule, and examined his wrists, quietly, wings sagging dismally. Nipping the remainder of the chain away had been fiddly but thankfully not too difficult; thankfully they'd had the presence of mind to weld it to itself, not to him. The plating had been left slightly dented, but it was only noticeable if you were looking for it. With luck he could cook up a story to keep his wingmates from asking too many difficult questions, if they spotted it.

"I told you it'd be easier if you just went along with us," Fatigue reminded, unable to quite wipe the triumphant smirk off his faceplates.

Skywarp glared up at him, tiredly. "I don't know if you're just too dumb to notice, but you didn't give me a whole lot of options."

"I don't know if _you _hadn't noticed, but that was the idea." Fatigue leaned down close to the sitting flier, and growled, softly; "now are you going to behave, and keep a civil tone on your vocaliser, or do we have to give you time to cool down again?"

Skywarp stiffened and hitched his wings a fraction, irritable. "Is that a _threat_, Fatty?"

"Interpret it how you will, _Airhead_. If you need to see it as a threat so it has meaning to you, rather than just a 'friendly suggestion', then sure, it's a threat-"

"Fatigue?" Pulsar interrupted, clutching frustratedly at her own sidelights. She'd been getting increasingly jittery as time had gone on, and was now almost vibrating. "Please. I need my Blue."

"You'll get it when I'm ready to give it to you," he growled, darkly. "I'm bus-"

"No, not later, I need it _now_!" she whimpered, ignoring the warning signs. "You keep telling me to do things, and telling me I'll get my Blue once I've done it, and you keep telling me I've not done enough or I've not done it properly and that I can't have any and I _need_ it and it's _not fair_, _give me my medicine!_" She clutched at him, and received a kick under the chin for her trouble – just a weak little blow, from the giant mech, but it flipped her to her back anyway. She jerked back into a ball, closed her arms protectively over the back of her helm and tucked her knees up to her chest, and made garbled little noises of distress.

"I told you to quit asking," Fatigue snapped. "If you stop testing my damn patience, I'll get you your Ruin. Now shut the Pit up!" He backed down, grumbling, and turned away to a small storage container, expertly designed to blend in with the rest of the rusting junk. "I _told_ Siphon we should have used Prophet on her…"

Skywarp glanced down at the little blue and white shape on the floor, and wrinkled his nose. Pulsar had curled down on herself, as if compressing herself into the tightest twisted bundle of arms and legs would somehow stop the withdrawal shudders that threatened to vibrate her to pieces. Primus, did she ever look _pathetic_. What _had_ they done to her? Such an obnoxious, noisy little holier-than-thou bundle of ridiculous Autobot self-righteous nobility, reduced to this wretched heap of loosely-connected wires and neuroses, lacking even the smallest smidgen of dignity.

_Won't catch __me__ performing tricks for them, _he consoled himself, somewhat anxiously. _I don't care __how__ desperate I get, I will keep my dignity. _

"All right, _all right_, already," Fatigue sighed, and flicked his wrist, and the Policebot had unfolded and was _lunging _for the sparkling cube of blue light before Skywarp fully realised what was going on.

She caught it before it hit the ground, and had it up to her mouth before she'd recovered from her lunge; skidded on her aft into the wall and barely even noticed as the impact bent one of her antennae behind her alarm lights. She inhaled it so fast she must have overloaded at least three analytical relays in the process, and the cube was empty in bare astro-seconds. Desperate need didn't negate the side-effects, though – she sat and retched, heaving and groaning and trying to keep her reflexes from purging her system as the Ruin settled into her fuel lines. Apparently her analysis pumps could recognise poison even if _she_ couldn't (or wouldn't).

"Don't worry, Seeker," Fatigue sneered, following Skywarp's half-disgusted/half-dismayed gaze to the huddled Policebot. "You ain't gonna turn into her. You only need Basic to keep functioning, at the moment, but she's on Blue Ruin."

"Why the difference?"

Assuming he meant difference in choice of products, Fatigue shrugged his huge shoulders. "We figured the less strain we put on your intellect, the better," he snickered. "You ought to consider it a blessing you're not the smartest, else you might have ended up on it yourself. Ruin's particularly good at keeping the more unruly machines loyal."

"That wasn't actually what I meant," Skywarp observed, quietly, but didn't pursue it.

"Speaking of which… Here," the tractor held out a cube of more intense blue.

"What is it?" Skywarp challenged, tiredly, holding out his hand to accept it off him.

"Blue Prophet. A small step up the potency ladder from Basic, but not so strong as Ruin. A little more… how can I put it… tailored." Fatigue set the cube into the outstretched hand. "Basic doesn't really do an awful lot, 'cept have a sorta calming effect." He shrugged. "I don't know if you noticed."

Skywarp nodded, thoughtfully. In a roundabout sort of way, he had noticed, when the blind _must-get-out-must-get-out-must-get-out _from earlier had eased into something comparatively more sedate. "So why are you giving me this?"

"You are I are both in the unenviable position of not being the brightest of machines," Fatigue admitted, gruffly. "We lag behind when everyone else has worked out the answer. We need complex theorems explained in greater detail to see the minutiae. Prophet helps a machine maintain clarity and focus, to see past the irrelevant details and grasp the larger picture more quickly."

Skywarp remained silent, but Pulsar could see the way his wings had perked a tiny fraction. He was obviously thinking seriously about it.

"All we want for now is a little information from you, in return."

"That's all?" Skywarp glanced up, suspiciously.

"For now, yes. Of course, in the future we'll want your aerial skills most of all, or we wouldn't have bothered approaching you, but to keep you ticking over and well supplied? That's all," Fatigue nodded. "We do reward loyalty, contrary to popular opinion."

Skywarp gazed down at the cube in his hand, silently.

"Look, I'll leave you to think about it. I need to check in with the Boss, so I'll come back in a bit. Right?"

"Right." Skywarp listened as the footsteps departed down the corridor, and contemplated the cube, quietly. It was… tempting. Not to be so smart as Screamer, because no amount of viral would do that, but to have just that little bit of clarity, that added ability to just _concentrate_. He set the cube down in front of his crossed legs, and turned it slowly between his palms, watched as the fractals danced through it.

By now, Pulsar had finally settled. She was still twitchy, her unfocused gaze bleary, but she didn't look quite so unwell, and seemed content to just sit, climbing onto the ruined machinery next to Skywarp and parking her aft down beside him. "You don't want that," she suggested, quietly. "Seriously. However he's been trying to sell it to you, you don't want it."

"What is this, the voice of experience?" he sniped.

"Look, if you hadn't noticed, they're trying to trick you into taking it!" she gritted out. "They're not doing it for your benefit, they're doing it to ensure you're on something strong enough you can't get off it!"

"I'm already on Basic, and I can't get off that either, so what difference will it make?" he challenged.

"You're on low-grade Basic, and you can function," she insisted, in a near-whisper. "If you get depleted, you can still operate mostly normally, you don't spend every spare astro-second wondering where your next supply is coming from! If you go up to the higher potency, you'll lose that ability." She hesitated, then added, more quietly, "and your wingmates will notice."

"So… that's why you got me with the Basic, not anything else?" Skywarp guessed, although his optics were narrowed suspiciously.

"No, I gave you Basic because I didn't want you to suspect anything," she husked, quietly, cycling her fans and trying to cool her overheated core. "It's potent, it's addictive, it's just… it's not very strong. Low-potency Basic looks like normal energon, mostly. Even you would have seen the difference if I'd left Ruin in your room." She stared down into the empty cube, and used her thumb to push a hole into the bottom, mouthed the last tiny sparkling cobalt droplets as they ran down the back of her hand. "Besides, I didn't want to share it with you," she added, glancing up, but there was a strange duplicity in her optics. "It was mine."

"No Autobot morals getting in the way, then?" he challenged.

"Pff." There was another of those uninterpretable semi-defensive flickers in her gaze. "I reserve my morals for those who _deserve_ them."

"Tcha, you're such a whiney little bundle of pathetic, you actually make me feel better about myself," he observed, gazing back down into the scintillating Prophet by his ankles.

"At least I'm good for _some_thing, then," she grumbled, quietly.

"You can't be that desperate you're gonna perform tricks for them whenever they snap their fingers."

"You do know why they call it Blue _Ruin_, don't you?" she objected, miserably. "It's because that's what it _does_, to everything it comes into contact with. They got me hooked on the Ruin from the outset. No choice in the matter. Not much chance I'm gonna get out with my spark intact." She glanced dully up at him. "I don't know, I figured… The lower the potency, the more likely you can get yourself out. I'm too deep in this to ever get out in one piece. I figured I might as well give you the best chance of escaping their clutches, so you can squash 'em for both of us."

"Well, you know, whining about it won't fix it," he reminded her. "I know from experience, I live with the past master at it. Frag, Screamer's a _championship-level _whiner, but nothing ever spontaneously fixes itself. We're going to have to be cleverer than they are, to get out."

"…you think _we_ can?" She cast a glance up at him, and hugged her knees.

Skywarp shrugged, offhand, and managed a lopsided smile. "It's just a chemical. There'll be a cure, and then we'll be fine. And boy, am I gonna _have words _with that Fatigue, when we do." Skywarp elevated his voice a fraction, to ensure the returning tractor heard him.

Fatigue pointedly ignored the jibe. "Decided?" he asked.

"I'll stick with what I've got, thank you," Skywarp replied, dryly, handing the cube of Prophet back.

Fatigue's optics narrowed, and he glanced hard down on Pulsar, who hunched her shoulders and tried to look guileless. "Anything to do with what poisoned words _she_ was slipping you, while I was out of the room?"

"Hardly," Skywarp scoffed. "I may not be university-level clever but I'm not an _idiot_. If I suddenly go back to my wingmates having had some miraculous cortex-transplant that's cured my less-intelligent ways, don't you think they'll see it as a _teensy_ bit suspicious?"

"Hrf," Fatigue straightened, irritably. "He must like you, Skinny. Anyone else would have happily let you get a kicking." Seeing her open her mouth to protest, he added, more loudly; "I may be big and stupid but I'm not _deaf_."

She averted her gaze. "No, sir. Sorry, sir," she backed down, quietly.

"All right, get out of here, the pair of you," Fatigue mimed a kick at them. "If you hang around much longer, people are gonna start asking questions."

"Probably _already_ asking questions," Skywarp groused, but dropped obediently to the floor.

"So you cook up a story to tell them on the way back," Fatigue shrugged, and smiled, lecherously. "Could always say you were more interested in investigating each other's functionality than in doing any work."

Skywarp looked unashamedly disgusted at the idea, and Pulsar made an irritable gagging sound.

"I'm sure we could think of something far more convincing," Skywarp argued, but obediently gathered the grav-cycle up off the ground and gunned his thrusters, sweeping gracefully skywards.

The Boss emerged silently from the shadows, and watched them depart. "We will have to keep a closer eye than I had anticipated on that one. Unless we can convince his hand or betray him onto a stronger product, he might prove uncontrollable."

Fatigue nodded. "Yeah, I see great potential in him, and it's all great potential for disaster," he agreed, humourlessly. "How we gonna get him off Basic, though?"

"Oh, I have a few ideas in my subspace," the Boss chuckled. "We first wait until he is more comfortable and careless. After that, we can introduce him to Crisis Blue." Pale optics glittered wickedly. "One step down from Screaming Blue, but barely distinguishable from normal energon."

"Isn't that still in the testing stages?" Fatigue even managed to look a little startled at the idea. "Hasn't it killed everyone, so far?"

"Yes, but I have every confidence that I will have it perfected soon enough. Our little Seeker is the ideal candidate to spearhead the campaign taking it into the market…"

0o0o0o0o0

Skywarp put down a block from the station, gracefully, and let the grav-cycle hesitantly unfasten her deathgrip-tight arms from around his chassis. He almost grinned in amusement – the little Policebot was almost as afraid of flying as he himself was claustrophobic. She'd spent the entire journey back with her face buried in his side, optics offlined, trembling – and he knew for a fact that she couldn't possibly be withdrawing, which he knew she'd blame it on. Oh well, they were even on _that_ front, at least.

"We're in a vulnerable position, here," he reminded her, softly. "We _could _work it in our favour, but if anyone at the station finds out, we'll be out of the loop permanently. So we have to keep quiet about it, for now at least. Right?"

"Right…" She finally looked up from testing her feet had a good grip on the ground. "And so long as we don't let ourselves get depleted and shaky, we should be able to slip under the radar."

"Exactly. And there's just one last thing I want you to be absolutely _crystal_ on before we go. If you so much as _think_ of letting slip any of what you might have heard while we were in the company of Fatigue and his goons…" He waved a finger threateningly, as if it'd help magic up the sentiment he wanted to convey. "Primus help me, I _will_ hand you over to your superior, consequences be damned. Got that?"

"Got it," she confirmed, knowing what he meant without him having to elaborate. "You know what I want to do now?" she asked, quietly, as they set off along the quiet street towards the station.

"I'm quite sure I can't possible imagine," Skywarp replied, dripping melodrama. "Chase down a few Decepticons, disregard the rules, make a name for yourself as a maverick, or do something ridiculously noble, or maybe all four…?"

She shook her head. "I want to go back on street patrol, I want to do paperwork, I want to do all the stupid menial things I hated so much, and I want to pretend none of this ever happened," she snivelled, quietly. "No more exciting Decepticons, no more dramatic important investigations, no more being close to the action, nothing. Just… I want things I can handle."

Skywarp was quiet, for a while. Finally, he gave her a look, quirked his head to one side, and wondered, out loud:

"You think I'm exciting?"


	20. Chapter 20

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Twenty**

**Disclaimer:** As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. (...Except where they're obviously OCs, which Hasbro would be silly to want to claim.)

**A/N:** Whee. I've put links to a few of the tracks I've been listening to while writing this up on my LiveJournal, since that seems to be the done thing these days? Anyway.

Trying to work out if I've left enough hints in this thing. :suspicious:

* * *

"So what are we going to do?" Pulsar demanded, as the unlikely pair walked 'home'. "They want us to _sabotage_ our own faction! And they'll _know _if we frag it up on purpose, and they'll never re-supply us, and we'll get found out and locked up or kicked out or-"

"Oh, psh. Come on. It shouldn't be too hard to act inept, should it?" Skywarp gave her a little shove. "_You're_ a holier-than-thou little overprincipled Autobot, and _I'm_ just stupid. If they call us out on it, we can wriggle out of it with a bit of thought. Right?"

Pulsar swallowed the urge to cut back that it should be _easy _for _him_. "But what if-"

"No, no what-ifs yet. They've not asked us to do anything that'd put us in a compromising position – the fact that they will in the future is irrelevant, because we're going to have been cured by then. Right?"

"We've got to _tell them_ we're addicted, to get cured. And there's no cure yet. What are we supposed to do, find someone to confide in?"

"Well, no, we can't tell them, not yet," Skywarp counselled, quietly. "If we even hint at it, they'll pull us off the investigation, even if they let us keep working and don't outright lock us up, and we're in too valuable a position to be taken off this. Right?"

"Right, but-"

"And you said it yourself. We can both still function pretty normally if we take appropriate precautions, and don't let ourselves run right down to vapours."

"Right."

"Look, the Blue guys think we're happy double agents, for them. Working inside to wreck the investigation, right?"

"…right."

"Soo… how about we go for the triple?"

"What do you mean?"

"Primus alive, if a dunce like me can grasp it, what's so hard for _you_ to understand? We do the same to _them_. Play along with their games, but use our position to do the same to them that they want us to do to our friends."

"Gather information on them from the inside…" Realisation was slowly dawning in her optics. "That's it! And it might just save our sparks when the guys find out!"

"But we'll have to play it _reeeally _carefully. If we give Blue the tiniest hint we're playing them false, _they_ will probably kill us." He twitched. "Or worse."

She almost asked what was worse than being killed, but changed her mind just in time. He was actually being kinda personable, right now, and she didn't want to ruin her chance at getting something like a confidant by asking idiot questions she knew the answer to already.

Thundercracker was at the desk when the pair finally ambled through the front entrance. He looked up from his discussion with the desk sergeant, and his expression was instantly one of equal parts relief and extreme irritation. "At last! Where did _you_ get to, you lazy fragger?! Forget you had a duty shift, or something?"

"Yeah, hello to you too, TC," Skywarp grumbled. "I was following a lead, I've not _stopped_ being on duty for the last orn or so."

"Following a lead, or following a piece of tail?" Thundercracker wondered, semi-scornfully, watching as a grimy Pulsar attempted to scuttle past without being noticed.

"Primus, is that how highly you rate my morals?"

"Now, how many words do you want me to answer that in? Because I think I could manage to think up a variety of one-word answers."

"Oh, why don't you just go _stick_ a _fork_ in it, Thundercracker-" Skywarp flounced past him.

"Look, I've had to do your duty shift, because you were fragging about in _Primus-knows-where_ with _Primus-knows-who_," Thundercracker growled, following him down the corridor. "That's _ignoring_ the fact you had me worrying you were going to turn up dead in a refuse bin, somewhere, because you vanished off to the horizon without telling anyone where you were going. So you could stand to be a little less unapologetic!"

Skywarp paused to take a moment to wrap his brain around all the apparent double negatives, and backed down, guiltily. "I didn't think about it that way," he admitted. "I didn't think anyone would get worried. I told Screamer I was going out, and I figured it didn't matter when he didn't yell too loud at me."

Thundercracker huffed, but looked satisfied at the semi-apology. "All right. But you _owe_ me, now. You do my next two shifts and I may – _may –_ forgive you…"

0o0o0o0

Jazz was pacing, quietly, trying to culture the unfamiliar mindset of the impatient addict. The jittery impatience was easier to pull off than he'd imagined, but that was probably helped by the fact that he genuinely _was _jittery. He'd been here for three breems already, and not only had 'the Source' still yet to turn up, he had the strong suspicion that word had got out, and the dealer wasn't _ever_ going to turn up. Best show willing, though. Abandoning this too early would only prove he wasn't quite the desperate addict he wanted to present himself as. So he waited, and paced, and paced, and waited, and worried that the game was up and he was about to get mugged or killed or worse.

He needn't have worried. After six and a bit breems had passed, Jazz decided that waiting any longer was just tempting fate and was making to leave… and two pale orange optics finally appeared from the shadows.

"Are you the Source? You're late," Jazz challenged, coldly. "What took you so long to get here? I was bang on time, just as you told me!"

"Just wanted to make sure you were genuine," the Source purred, sweetly, bowing deeply to him. "You never can tell who _is_ and who _isn't_ playing a double game, in this climate of fearful suspicion…"

"Just… get on with it!," Jazz paced. "Are you the dealer?"

The Source smiled. "Well, that depends. Are you the buyer?"

"Depends," Jazz echoed. "What have you got?"

"Depends what you want!"

"We could go round in circles like this all day," Jazz forced an irritable tone, and hugged his arms around himself. "I need a new supplier. What can you do for me?"

"Well, you've certainly come to the right place!" The delivery truck bowed. "I am of course the Source, for all your needs-"

"How much?" Jazz interrupted.

The truck's pale face grew serious. "We'll cut you a deal. A special price just this once, and if you send us some more consumers…" The Source shrugged, lazily. "We'll think about keeping at this price for a while."

Knowing he had absolutely no need to return for more supplies, Jazz was quick to agree. "What do I pay, and what exactly do I get in return?"

"One hundred credits, and you get six cubes of Ruin. That works out at maybe one and a bit cubes for free."

"Nnh. That's a big outlay," Jazz fidgeted, paced about. "I was thinking more of having just one or two cubes, in case anyone mugs me again. Can I think about it and get back to you…?" A hundred credits was a lot of money, which he was technically only _borrowing_ off the police, and would Starscream really _need _six cubes? Superintendent Boxer had taken a fair amount of persuasion just to loan the money in the first place. But then, Jazz consoled himself, he was used to the laying of oil on troubled waters, and if he tried hard enough he'd be able to put a positive spin on it and talk his way out of it.

The truck lifted his chin, arrogantly. "You won't find any better offers on the streets, and this is a one-time-only deal," he said, flatly. "You walk away now, and so does the offer."

"All right," Jazz hesitated, fidgeted. "All right. Um. I'll… I'll see if I've got that much…"

Jazz took his time to 'find' enough credits to pay the Source, and by the time he'd finished he'd gone all the way down to small change and the delivery truck was trying to disguise how irritated _he_ had grown. "There. That-… that should be a hundred."

The truck narrowed his optics, and took another breem or two to laboriously count it. "All right," he said, at last, sounding almost disappointed, and fetching the promised cubes. "This all looks like it's in order."

Jazz clutched for the cubes with a very passable desperation, and tucked them safely away in his subspace. "

"Remember," the Source purred, almost seductively. "Bring us more customers, and we'll honour the price you paid just now…"

0o0o0o0

Deuce watched as the idiot police Autobot departed with what he thought was six nice fresh cubes of Blue, and permitted himself a sly smirk. The Boss had been endlessly amused at the idea that the police thought they could actually _outwit_ them, and had instructed that Deuce deliver a special additional 'sample', hidden among the rest of the Blue.

He opened a channel to his co-conspirators. "Fatigue? Yeah. He's gone."

"_Has he got the supplies?_" Fatigue asked, darkly.

"Yep," Deuce confirmed, nodding to himself. "All of them. Including the surprise package."

"_Good. With luck, the Boss' plan will come to the intended explosive climax…"_

0o0o0o0

"Hey, Screamer!"

Starscream glanced up from his work, irritably – the greeting hadn't come from one of his wingmates, and he _only just_ tolerated them calling him that at the _best_ of times. "What?"

Jazz grinned from the doorway. "I went out shopping, for you," he explained, idly, and ambled in with a tray full of little blue cubes.

"Aha!" Starscream's glare fell off, and he accepted the handful of cubes as if they were the single most precious item in the entire universe, looking inappropriately pleased at the windfall. "More than enough for my analysis. I'll even have some spares."

"You're welcome, by the way," Jazz quipped, pointedly.

"What? Oh, right," Starscream wrinkled his lip. "_Thanks_." The word dripped insincerity, but Jazz grinned anyway.

"Nice to see _some_ things don't change, huh?" Jazz chuckled, and passed Calibrator in the doorway. "Have fun, Screamer."

"Don't call me that!" Starscream sniped at the departing back, and received a dismissive hoot of laughter in return from the corridor.

Calibrator paused in the doorway, and pouted at the red Seeker's back. "What are you doing?" she demanded, disgruntledly. "Don't you trust my research? I've worked with this compound for the past seventy orns, I know the most about it that anyone does… starting over is pointless, after all the research I've done-!" Six new cubes threw a royal blue shine up his cockpit and lit his dark features.

The red Seeker smiled patiently down at her, which was all the more infuriating. "Perhaps, but I want to see for myself how it works, without all your contaminants in the way."

"They're not _contaminants_, they're experimental antitoxins-!" She sounded grossly indignant.

"Were they in there to start with?"

"Well, no-"

"Exactly. So, like I said. They're contaminants."

Calibrator huffed, but backed down. "So what variant are these?"

Starscream took a moment to cross-reference off a databoard. "Prophet, looks like. Medium potency."

"Mm, I'd agree with that," Calibrator nodded, inspecting the little array. "Although-… Hmm." She picked up one of the cubes, distractedly, and set it down under the fume hood at the side of the room. "Don't like the look of that one," she admitted, flicking the switch and filling the air with the low _hum_ of exhaust fans. "Doesn't look like anything I've seen before."

Starscream inspected it through the toughened glass. "A new fractal type?" It looked like all the rest of the Prophet, to him, but then he didn't have the microscoping optic lenses the analyst had.

"It's… well, yes, it's possible," Calibrator acknowledged, leaning her forearm against a lever and spraying a thick layer of lurid green DisposaGlove up her arms, all the way past her elbows. "Just doesn't look _quite_ like any Blue I've seen before. The fractals are… well… _off_. Not sure how to describe it." She waved her hands to get the components to dry.

"Isn't that a bit excessive?" Starscream challenged; his own neat, trimmed gloves extended only up to his wrists.

She glanced up, and shrugged. "Mm, perhaps. But when you've accidentally sprayed yourself with so much analytical reagent that it takes your dermal plates off, you'll probably overglove as well."

0o0o0o0

A bath and a rest had done wonders for Pulsar – clean and polished, the formerly-raggedy little addict looked like she belonged at the station again, rather than an escapee from the cell block. Having someone to confide in helped, as well, even if that someone was about as much good as a paper fireguard half the time; the important part was that she was no longer alone in her problem, and they might be able to hash out some sort of solution together… eventually.

"You're looking better, Pulse," Nightsun greeted, with a testing smile, as she arrived in the break room to join the other constables for her shift. "Go see the doctor like I asked?"

"Yeah," she lied, and nodded. "Here, he gave me a note for you."

Nightsun read over the forged scrap she'd handed him, and narrowed his optics suspiciously. "You elected not to see the station medic?"

"Well, the pair of you may have been swapping notes, see, and he might have been biased," she teased. "I got a checkup from someone I knew wouldn't wrangle things to force me to get a few orns off work."

Nightsun's dark expression softened, and Pulsar felt a flash of relief that he'd bought it. "Fair enough," he backed down. "You're still going to go easy on yourself for the next few orns, though, right?"

"Absolutely." _If it stops me having to lie to my friends, I'm all for it._

"You see you do," he threatened, affectionately. "We're still waiting for Hardline to get down here with the orn's rota. Go park your aft, and try not to get into a slanging match with Whitesides – he's got his opinionated head on again."

As Nightsun said, Whitesides was holding court over a little gaggle of gravity-cycles in the corner – an equal mix of both genders, all simmering in a kind of self-righteous outrage. Pulsar listened in for a minute, but they weren't arguing about anything new – just the same-old same-old how dare those damn fliers move in and take over, the police were going to solve the Blue problem and _then_ arrest the Seekers for war crimes, etc. She wondered for the first time if it was an inherent design flaw in her class of machine. Until the Decepticons had turned up, she'd not really noticed _how_ self-righteous and overbearing she could be, and now she was seeing it _everywhere_. Whitesides had been quite a close friend at the academy, and they'd shared a dorm (and secrets, and ideals) for vorns, but now he came across as abrasive and unlikable. Somehow, even Skywarp came across as the nicer mech – she banished _that_ thought as quickly as possible.

Keeping anything that wasn't Ruin down was getting harder. She elected not to join Whitesides little group, just in case, staying at her own little table and nursing a small container of clean energon, trying to convince her pumps not to purge it. It took having everyone's optics on her for her to realise that someone had spoken to her. "Uh-… What?"

"I said, I think we should bring in mandatory testing," Whitesides repeated, watching intently for her response. "So we can catch the spy."

"That would only work if it's a spy who's addicted," Pulsar countered, trying to avoid answering the 'mandatory testing' aspect. "And there's nothing to say that's the case. Could be an undercover Decepticon. Could be a 'Neutral with an Agenda'."

"And you really think that's likely?" he scoffed. "Come on, who here would be likely to sell their principles without having their hand forced by Blue?"

"Look, I'm really tired, Whites, I don't want to fight with you," she countered, quietly. "My central processor is burned out. My stacks are filled all the way to quaternary with rubbish that I haven't had time to defragment out. I want to just do my shift, settle into my berth, and get my cortex working straight again."

Whitesides' pale face twisted into a smirk of triumph. "And just _whose _berth would you be doing that in, sweet little Pulse?"

Her primary pump went still in her chest. "What is _that_ supposed to mean?"

"Oh, nothing. Just that you're the topic of quite a few conversations around the station. And quite a few sweepstakes." He leaned closer and murmured into her audio; "how far _did_ you get, hm?"

The Chief Inspector inadvertently saved Whitesides from a broken optic. Hardline's deep voice sounded across the noisy break room and attracted everyone's attention before Pulsar could slug her roommate round the faceplates. "All right, you lot," he boomed, and held up a fan of data wafers. "New rotas are out, and it's all change. Most of you are on a new route that better takes into account your skills. Ergo, I'm sorry to say, some of you will be doing two shifts in a row, now – but we'll double your rations to make up for it. Now lets see some clean pairs of thrusters, and get to work!"

There was grumbling, but most of the junior officers headed obediently off out. Pulsar grabbed Whitesides' wrist before he could slink off. "Just what do you think you're doing?" she hissed, up at him. "If you're spreading malicious rumours about me-"

"I'm not the _only_ one," he interrupted, softly, "to have heard that you and that filthy Seeker were out – _alone_ – last night. I hope you're not forgetting where your allegiances lie, in favour of a pretty face."

"Just what are you insinuating?" she asked, grimly.

"What do you _think_ I'm insinuating?" Whitesides lowered his voice a fraction, dangerously, and his pale gaze glittered. "I think you might just have pink optics for him. Good looking mech, and strong, powerful, but not so brainy that he makes you feel threatened… a little spice of danger in him, too. I can see a little scatterbrain like you finding him worth chasing."

Pulsar leaned closer across the table and lowered her own voice to match. "I would rather chew the residue off my own afterburners," she argued, quietly, "than chase after anyone like _him_-"

A shadow loomed across them. "Excuse me, _constables_," Nightsun drawled, amusedly, "but don't you both have places to be?"

"Yes, sir!" Whitesides leaped up as if stung, and was gone in a blink.

Pulsar was more sluggish. "I've got another exciting rotation, no doubt." She glared disgustedly into her energon, and turned the mug between her fingers, irritably.

"Everything all right between you and your roommates, Pulse?"

She glanced up to meet the sergeant's gaze. "He's accusing me of having some sort of inappropriate _tryst _with that Seeker," she groused.

"Well, you did get people talking. You vanished same time as he did, then arrived back with him next morning. You probably should have sneaked in the back way if you didn't want Whisper to tell _everyone_, you know what a gossip-hound he is."

"Look, there's nothing happening." She shook her head, propping her chin on one hand. "I had a tiny lead, about where some loyalists might have been using as a base. I couldn't get there fast enough, so I roped him into getting me there quicker."

"That's all it is?" Nightsun probed, gently. "You just got him to fly you there?"

"What else would it be?"

"Pulsar, you're going to have to learn to lie better," Nightsun gave her a warning look.

"What?" For the second time in as many breems, her pump went still.

"Just be careful what you're getting into," he counselled, gently, thankfully not pursuing the untruth aspect. "I know there's more to it than you claim, because I know you're the last person to have 'just got him to fly you somewhere'. You're terrified of heights."

0o0o0o0

An addiction was not a good thing to have, Skywarp had long ago concluded.

It wasn't so much that he didn't have enough supplies, because that fat tractor had given both enough to easily last a half dozen orns. It was more having to fight the urge to blurt it out to his wingmates, because he wanted _so bad_ just to confess to someone (preferably TC). They might _understand_, but he figured there was no way _Screamer_ would let him stay on the investigation while he was the weak link. The red Seeker might be highly emotional, but he was just as ruthlessly logical as Shockwave, sometimes. Bad enough that he'd already been called to account about exactly _what_ he'd been up to, once the rumours filtered through to Starscream, and it had taken some skilled negotiations to get him to finally back down and accept the "tryst" was actually nothing.

Now Starscream's little explosion of temper had faded, the laboratory was quiet and chilly again. Skywarp wasn't sure which he preferred. It felt like all six machines working here were watching him, probing for the slightest slip that might reveal his dirty secret. He folded his arms and affected an air of nonchalance, and luckily no-one called him out on anything.

Starscream had got four out of the six cubes safely into the cold store, under a passworded lock and forcefield. Calibrator had huffed for a while, demanding to know why he didn't trust her and had to lock his own samples away when hers were all readily accessible, but he waved her off with an irritable little grumble and she'd backed down, simmering. He had one cube that he was working on, and was throwing a whole spectrum of tests at it, as if it were just a puzzle, not a destructive, addictive substance.

The little cube was a tantalising presence. Skywarp recognised it as Prophet – he reached out a hand, and gave it a little nudge with the back of a knuckle – watched familiar cyan facets dance through it at the little tremor.

"Stop fiddling, Warp," Starscream scolded, absent-mindedly, and swatted the purple hands away. "I don't want you contaminating the exemplars."

Skywarp took his hands back, and tucked them down his sides by his wings, poutily. "I was only looking."

"You tend to graduate from _looking_ to _breaking_ altogether too quickly," Starscream corrected. "Keep your hands to yourself."

Skywarp huffed, then sensed someone's gaze upon him, and glanced up across the table. Calibrator was watching him, a curious look in her optics, and he shifted, awkwardly, stared her out. It felt like any minute now, everyone would know his terrible secret. _Stop drawing attention to yourself_, he admonished himself.

"Bored?" Calibrator guessed – incorrectly, but Skywarp nodded, anyway, taking what he hoped was the convenient way out she'd offered.

"Labs aren't my natural territory," he agreed, folded his arms.

Starscream glanced up, penetratingly. "You not feeling well, Skywarp?"

"No, I just said. I'm bored."

Starscream's features compressed into a little moue of suspicion. "Right," he agreed, but didn't sound remotely convinced. "So why aren't you tampering your way into me evicting you from the lab?"

"What?"

"You're not patient when you're bored. You fiddle and break things, and as yet you haven't. Want to revise your problem?"

"Oh, pfft," Skywarp threw his hands up and stomped off. Words followed him out of the doorway until he faded from audio range down the corridor; "everyone has a problem these days. It's all this close proximity to Autobots, it's messing with my brainpan…"

"TC?" Starscream opened a private channel to his wingmate. "Calling in a favour, here."

"_What's up?_"

"Would you keep half an optic on Warp, if you get time? I'm worried he's got deeper into this than he ought to be."

There was an awkward silence as Thundercracker processed the implications. "…_you think he might have been got at?_"

"I'm not saying anything for definite, apart from that he's certainly not acting himself..."

0o0o0o0

Skywarp was in the galley, when Thundercracker finally tracked him down. He had a small untouched cup of energon, and was pouting at it, moodily. The blue Seeker helped himself to a mug from the dispenser at the counter, moved gracefully between the aisles of empty tables or sleepy officers, and slid into the seat opposite his wingmate.

"Hey, Warp," he greeted, with a smile.

Skywarp just grunted, at first. "Whatever."

"Eh, what's up? You all right?" Thundercracker asked, gently.

"You too, TC? Rrgh," Skywarp pushed his untouched energon away. "Why is everyone ganging up on me these days? Auto-dorks not a good enough target, for once, you have to pick on Little Stupid in the Corner?"

"Not ganging up, Skywarp. Just… worried about you."

"Well, you needn't be," Skywarp folded his arms against the table and let his chin rest down on them, and a hovercar had to negotiate a lot more carefully than he'd anticipated to get round the large expanse of wing. "I'm not some precious sparkling who needs protection and guidance every step of the way."

"I didn't say that. I meant, anyone can get in trouble," Thundercracker counselled, quietly. "Not just precious sparklings. Even the fiercest warriors to ever patrol the skies can find themselves in places it's hard to get out of without help."

Skywarp glanced up and met his gaze, silently.

"You would tell your wing-brothers if you were in trouble, right?" Thundercracker chased. "You know we'd help you."

Skywarp made a face, then actually laughed. "Of course I'd tell you," he reassured, patting his friend's arm and swigging back the energon. "_If _I was in trouble. You and Screamer have let this thing spook you."

Thundercracker managed a lopsided smile, and let his gaze drop, sheepishly. "Yeah, I figured we were just overreacting. Still. The offer stands."

0o0o0o0

Pulsar had been heading back from her shift when she felt a _ping _of GPS data against her firewalls. She cross-referenced the point – somewhere close, very open-plan. Couldn't be Fatigue. She relaxed her firewall a little, and felt another ping, this one a simple chit of sensory data – blue light. That explained all she needed to know.

When Pulsar finally tracked Skywarp down, he was sitting on an old oil drum, looking shaky, in a patch of derelict ground a block or two from the station.

"Still can't tolerate normal energon," he explained, quietly, hugging his shaky arms to his chassis. "Is that normal?"

"I think Blue makes your diagnostics misinterpret it as toxic," she confirmed, wrapping his fingers around the Basic she'd managed to smuggle out of his dorm, and ensuring he had a good grip on it. "I think so long as you don't overdilute the fractal, you can keep small volumes down."

"I thought TC was on to us for a minute. I made myself have a whole flask, just to stop him worrying, and barely made it here before I purged _everything_," he confessed, with a hopeless grin. "Such an idiot."

"I purged three times before _I_ worked it out," she argued, sitting on the floor by his feet and tucking her knees up. "You're doing well to have only been caught out the once."

"You heard the rumours?" he wondered, grimacing and letting the Basic integrate slowly.

"Yeah," she nodded against her knees, glumly. No need to go into detail. "Means it's probably not a good idea to meet up like this any more."

"That, or we should wind the glitches up on purpose."

She allowed herself a half-smile. "I think that'd just be tempting fate."

"Perhaps – but it'd distract them from the real problem, wouldn't it?"

0o0o0o0

"Okay, so how about this-"

"No, no, tried it, won't work. The anti-codons don't match up. Same if you follow the strand that interferes in fuel-handling. They're too complex to safely delete."

Starscream folded his arms, and glared at the glass workscreen he and Calibrator were poring over, as if attempting to intimidate it into giving up all its secrets. They'd been hashing out ideas for a solution for cycles, and hadn't even got a step closer to solving it.

"I think we're going to have to be cleverer about deleting this," Calibrator suggested, gesturing at the screen. "Maybe… we could… I don't know, copy it out, somehow?"

Her fingers brushed accidentally against his, and he moved around to the opposite side of the workbench, his back to the fume cupboards behind him. "Don't crowd me," he threatened, quietly.

"I'm sorry, I-… I just…" she flustered, optics brightening in humiliation. "I didn't realise I was acting inappropriately. I was just… when I saw you on the news, I never once imagined I would end up working with you." She hesitated, and quirked her head. "You're smarter than the Autobots would admit to. You could make a new name for yourself, here."

"Hmph," he groused, and jabbed at the screen. "Not anything I have any plans to do, at the moment. I have… _unfinished business_ to attend."

Calibrator nodded, understandingly. "Takes more than a few well-placed words to change the mindset of a thousand vorns, correct? I won't mention it again."

A breem or two passed in silence, until Starscream was disturbed by a blue-white flicker in the corner of his vision. He carefully set down the stylus he'd been using to scribble over the workscreen, and turned in the direction of the spark.

He got as far as "what was that flash-?" before the hideous, shattering explosion tore apart the cube under the fume hood, and flattened everyone in the lab.


	21. Chapter 21

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Twenty-One**

**Disclaimer:** As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. (...Except where they're obviously OCs, which Hasbro would be silly to want to claim.)

**A/N:** Try as I might, I can't leave you lot hanging for long. You'll stop giving me such nice reviews. ;) Aside from that, can't think of any other a/ns today. Too early for thinking.

* * *

The shattering _boom_ and raucous shiver of broken glass seemed to have woken everyone in the whole neighbourhood up, which didn't go down well with those constables who'd just come back off a double-shift. The medical unit had rapidly set up in the walled training yard out at the back of the station, but thankfully seemed to have _anticipated_ having far more injuries than they actually _got_. Superficial burns and impact fractures seemed to be the order of the day.

Automatically, Boxer looked for the most senior member of staff present at the accident, and was given a choice between Starscream and Calibrator – and the spindly analyst wasn't looking particularly forthcoming with information, bundled up as she was in blanket and shivering convulsively.

Calibrator had apparently been paying more attention to Starscream than what was going on, because she was the only one out of the six machines that had been working in the lab to have any significant injuries. Flying debris from the shattering workscreen had torn a chunk out of her right shoulder, and her arm now hung limp and pathetic at her side. The brief conflagration that had followed the percussion had all but disintegrated her lab-wrap right off her, streaked her dark body with bright trails where solvent had spilled then burned off. It had left her high-pitched and shaky, and so far she'd not allowed anyone else close enough to remove the last few shreds of fabric that clung around her torso. The station doctor had given her a foil blanket to help her maintain her core temperature, and she'd wrapped herself up in it like the prey of a silver spider.

For someone who'd been so close to the blast, Starscream was looking remarkably healthy – he was a little scorched, but all the damage was very superficial. His dark features had a large plaque of brilliant green polymer all the way from the right brow to the left corner of his mouth, where a bottle of DisposaGlove had exploded at him, and the enamel was spiderwebbed with silvery lines where solvent had taken the topcoat off, but he was arguing animatedly with the medic attempting to help clean him up so it obviously wasn't too big a hindrance. The worst injury looked like it had been to his pride; the electric green 'eyepatch' the medic was attempting to peel off him gave him an unintentionally comedic look, and judging by the way he was being given a wide berth and some very dirty looks by everyone else he'd already illustrated just _why_ they shouldn't laugh at him.

"So. What happened?" Boxer demanded, arms folded.

Starscream glanced sidelong at him, scarcely moving but still earning a distracted scolding from the medic attempting to remove the last pieces of glass and green polymer from his left optic. "Someone _sabotaged _the lab, that's what happened," he hissed, painfully, and gave the medic an aggravated shove. "_Ow_! Be careful with that."

Boxer watched as the medic set the tweezers aside and picked up a wash-bottle. "And what leads you to think it was sabotage?" he wondered.

Starscream made a face and squinted as the medic sprayed the rinse into his optics, flushing out the last tiny bits of glass. "Well what _else_ could it have been? Are spontaneously combusting laboratories a common prob-_ow_! I didn't ask you to do that, cut it out! – a common problem, around here?"

"Accidents do happen sometimes."

Starscream glowered and endured his rinsing with a fidgety bad grace. "I hope you aren't trying to insinuate that any of your forensics team are unskilled manual workers," he growled, quietly. "Because if that is the case, I will not work in the same lab as _incompetents_."

"What about yourself? You've been a warrior for almost as long as I can recall."

The red Seeker smiled dangerously. "I would hope that even _you_ are clever enough not to be calling _me_ incompetent."

"Not necessarily _incompetent_. You said something about sabotage."

The smile turned into a sneer of distaste. "If you are attempting to imply I blew my own lab up, while I was still _in_ it, you aren't improving my opinion of your intellect," he added, pithily, and chased the medic away with a glare. "Just because that's the sort of thing Megatron does, it doesn't mean we're _all_ morons."

Boxer's lip twitched irritably, but he refused to rise to the bait. "I just wanted to hear you confirm it. There will be others who ask the same question, after all."

"Psh. I think the people who _ask_ will be the same people who will refuse to believe it, regardless of who it comes from." Starscream mopped his dark face dry with a shred of old rag. "Have you considered looking at _your own _organisation, Superintendent?" he wondered. "As I'm pretty sure it was one of the new exemplars that blew up."

"You're trying to place the blame with Jazz?"

"Why not?" The Seeker dropped lightly back to the floor, in search of a mirror to peel the last remnants of green out of his audio vents. "An opportunity is an opportunity, and getting rid of me _now_, with an 'accident', would save them a lot of effort when we return to Earth when this is over."

"Hm," Boxer pursed his lips and looked contemplative. "I'll make some discreet enquiries."

"You better, because if _you_ don't, _I_ will, and you can be sure that _I_ won't be 'discreet' about it."

"And _that_ I can believe. All right. I'll go see what he has to say for himself," Boxer confirmed, excusing himself.

There was a familiar pale green shape over to one side; Starscream homed in on it. "Sepp?"

Forceps straightened from examining Calibrator's injured shoulder. "Scarlet?" she greeted, automatically, then corrected herself, dryly. "Um, that is, commander Starscream. Good to see you again."

"You too," he actually managed a half-smile. "I didn't think our paths would have much cause to cross again."

"Well, no-one's that lucky," she quipped. "You can blame Hardline for that. He called me in."

"So it's just 'Hardline', is it, not 'Chief Inspector'?" Starscream sneered, amusedly, and cocked his head. "Anyone would think you two had a thing going."

"Who says we don't?" She tapped her nose, knowingly, then narrowed her eyes, then reached out a hand to cup his chin, roughly, and examined his face more closely. "You were caught in this too?"

He'd already jerked himself backwards out of reach, irritably. "Yes, if it wasn't _too_ obvious."

"Must have been pretty close, something's taken the enamel off."

"Close enough." He folded his arms, defensively. "The percussive front knocked me over, so most of the debris – apart from a gallon or two of solvent – went past me." He paused, glanced down at Calibrator, and added; "The workscreen wasn't tough enough to keep _her_ out of it, though."

"Mm, I figured that was why I got the call, otherwise the station medic could probably have patched things quite nicely on his own." Forceps nodded. "All right, Cali. You sit still, and I'll see what we can do for you," the big female instructed, and eased the shredded fabric away from the battered shoulder.

"H-how bad is it?" the analyst stuttered, faintly.

"Hm," Forceps mused, out loud, examining the wound. "Probably looks a lot worse than it is. Clean cut, just bisected an actuator. I can replace that, easy. Just need to find the parts. Will you be all right for a day or two while I source the components?"

"I'll be all right so long as it's f-fixable."

"Oh, eminently. I'll get hold of the parts I need, then give you a buzz." Forceps gave the blanket a shake, then tore a long strip off one side. "You'll probably need to come to the district general. Conditions in theatre will probably be a bit better controlled than on my spare berth back home."

"Somebody is trying to kill me," Cali squeaked to her lab partner, as the surgeon carefully fashioned a sling to keep the injured arm tidy and out of the way.

Starscream shook his head, watching as the analyst burrowed back into her torn blanket. "I think someone's just trying to make a point," he suggested. "I don't know what the chemical was they used, but it didn't seem powerful enough to kill anyone, even if it hadn't been under a fume hood."

"Well, it nearly killed _me_-! A handspan to the left and I could be _dead_!" She had gone shrill in something akin to frightened outrage. "That glass could have gone right through my spark!"

"But it didn't," he said, calmly, lifting a finger. "You were just unlucky. There's no point in stressing yourself too highly over it."

"But I-"

"That's a sound philosophy to have, Cali," Forceps added, gently. "It won't help you recover if you overheat yourself over things that didn't actually happen."

Calibrator mumbled something unintelligible, averted her gaze and huddled deeper into her blanket.

"Things still bad at work?" Starscream wondered, as they moved away to give Calibrator some space to calm herself down.

"From a surgical perspective, nothing's really changed, but I know things have got pretty dire in the emergency department," she confirmed. "Spots is running himself ragged, trying to be everywhere at once. The hospital is actually having to resort to giving confiscated supplies _back_ to the addicts because there's nothing else we can do for them yet." She paused and gave him a glance. "How close to a cure are you?" she insisted, grimly. "We need one. We've had two deaths from Screaming Blue already, and it's only going to go up."

"I've only begun to scratch the surface," he admitted. "I'm not entirely sure how it works. We're trying to find clues to the designer, as well – tracing signatures, trying to reverse engineer it."

"We need an antivirus," she repeated, folding her arms for emphasis. "You can play private detective all you like, later. The antidote is the important bit, so we can actually _do_ something for the people we have to turn away."

"If we don't cut the supply chain," Starscream argued, "then you'll just have an endless, pitiful stream of idiots crawling to your doors needing the antidote. Stopping the production of Blue is more important than antidotes for the idiots who get themselves addicted."

They matched glares for a while, neither willing to back down.

"What's going on here?"

Both glanced up to find Boxer approaching; there was an unspoken communication, and both backed down. "Nothing," the red Seeker waved a hand, airily. "Just getting a small update from the situation on the streets."

"And your friend is…?" Boxer wondered.

"Consultant Forceps," Hardline supplied, from behind, and received a little nod of acknowledgement. "One of my officers had expressed concerns over your welfare. Good to see you're still functioning. Are we to assume you're the magnanimous spark responsible for returning a certain Air Commander to the fold?"

She nodded, silently.

"Guess I should have suspected it." His broad face broke into a grin. "You always _were_ a sap."

0o0o0o0o0

Skywarp had arrived back with Pulsar somewhat belatedly – both had heard the explosion, as they sat away in the safe zone they'd used to get their Blue-deprivation back under control, and had been making their inappropriately leisurely way back until their pingers went off simultaneously and they realised it had been the station. They fled homeward infected with a new urgency, not daring voice the half-dread at what they might find.

The scene of utter devastation both had expected was conspicuous in its absence. The cleanup crew was starting to sweep the scorched glass up out of the yard below, and the over-patched sides of the battered old police station had some new carbon scars outside the laboratory windows, but all the important residents were gathered outside and still functional.

Calibrator looked fairly shaken, Pulsar noticed, glass crunching underfoot as she trotted across the yard, and she quietly invoked Primus' name in a curse. That was typical of how their luck was going so far – the one person most important to solving this whole mess was the one to have come off _worst_.

Whitesides had already drifted closer to the little analyst, who had in turn actually allowed him to get within touching distance, and he was murmuring quiet comfort to her. Figured that _he_ would have some sort of input, Pulsar thought, uncharitably. He'd probably use this "friendship" to bribe her onto his side, get that mandatory testing brought in. At least her roommate had apparently forgotten their quarrel earlier – he gave her an anxious little nod in greeting, apparently having more important things on his mind than challenging her about what she'd just been up to.

For his part, Skywarp was intensely relieved to see Starscream still in one functional undamaged piece… but not _quite_ so relieved to see the splash of mint-green armour nearby. He narrowed his eyes, suspiciously. "What's _she_ doing here?"

Starscream followed his stare, and sighed. _Of course, his favourite suspect, Forceps_. "You're not going to start _that_ again, are you?"

Skywarp lifted his chin, belligerently. "Well, isn't it just a _tiny bit convenient_ that she just _happened _to show up after the explosion?" he challenged.

Starscream scowled at him. "Lay off, Warp. Hardline called her in because he knew Cali was too serious for the station medic to fix, and that is the sole reason she's here."

"Not just checking up on her handiwork, then?" Skywarp sniped, poisonously.

"Oh for goodness-… When was it that you got so stubborn that you can't listen to reason and let go of an idea that is _clearly_ incorrect?"

"When did _you_ forget all your precious scientific principles, and become so unwilling to even _contemplate_ something all the evidence is pointing at?!"

Sensing things might come to an impasse, and not willing to let the two come to blows (especially in full view of the Autobots), Thundercracker slipped neatly between them. "You two want to cool down and discuss things like rational adults?" he wondered, holding each at arms' length. "Yelling is only going to make you even _less_ inclined to listen to each others' ideas."

Starscream folded his arms and huffed, quietly. "I'd be more than happy to listen to Warp's ideas if they made half a smidgen of _sense_," he sniped, grimly. "What he's suggesting just isn't _rational_."

"Oh, because ignoring the evidence is _so_ much better, of course-" Skywarp shot back.

Thundercracker gave a beleaguered sigh and caught his dark wingmate's arm. "Come on, Warpy, time for a time-out," he suggested, and glanced back over his shoulder at Starscream. "You could at least swallow some of that pride and just _ask_ her, too. Acting all peevish because _Warp's_ having ideas when _you're_ stuck isn't going to help the investigation."

Starscream glared at the departing wings, but his blue optics lacked their usual heat. It was true, after a fashion – ridiculous though the idea he'd fixated on might be, at least Skywarp had been _trying_ to make suggestions, which was more than the rest of the team were doing. He glanced sidelong at the surgeon; she and Hardline were standing discussing something over by the temporary energon dispenser. (Sure didn't _look_ like they "had something going on"; two more duty-conscious workaholic machines would have been hard to find.) Still. Better at least show willing.

"Just confirm something for me, Sepp," he suggested, tiredly, ambling over. "Naming no names, of course, a certain 'police attaché' to the Decepticon Air Force thinks you may have had something to do with all this. As in, you work in a hospital, have access to raw materials, and could theoretically have masterminded it all." He gave her a wry look. "So. Did you? Are you really the criminal mastermind who's been eluding us this whole time?"

"Why, yes, and you have _found _me out. Better arrest me now," Forceps deadpanned, and cast her gaze skywards. "He's never trusted me, has he?" she mused, knowing exactly who Starscream had been referring to, and matched stares with the glowering dark Seeker across the other side of the yard. "I think it's a bit of a compliment that he thinks I'm smart enough! Fact of the matter is, most of this is beyond me. I'm no psychiatrist, the intricacies of neurological programming are completely beyond my capacity."

"You fixed _me_ pretty well."

She smiled, absently. "But yours was down to physical damage. If it had been program errors, or if you'd actually had the Blue? I'd have had to have got one of Overhaul's team on the case."

"Speaking of him, has anyone checked _he_ hasn't had a hand in this?"

"Ha! A more holier-than-thou pure-sparked Autobot would be very hard to find," Hardline cut in. "I can drop a few questions with the Director of Medicine, though. Panacea tends to be pretty clued up with her staff. If Overhaul's been spending strange amounts of time or money lately, she'll know."

0o0o0o0o0

Once the bomb disposal team had confirmed that there was no more combustible material in the ruined laboratory, they let the forensics team back in, to try and determine exactly what happened. Even Calibrator had recovered enough to want to venture back in; she stuck close to Starscream at first, before finally deciding that the place _was_ inert again and there were no more secret explosives hidden away anywhere the bomb team had missed.

Wounded arm still bandaged against her torso, Calibrator one-handedly followed the Electronose, tracing residual chemicals as they wove their wiggly line across the ruins of the laboratory and trying to work out what it was that had caused such a conflagration.

"Hm," she mused, out loud, as the device peeped a result at her. "The explosives were organic in nature. Interesting."

"Organic?" Skywarp cut in, confused. "What, you mean _humans_ blew the place up?"

"No, no, organic refers to the chemical makeup, rather than implying any biological derivatives, in this case," Calibrator explained, gently, before Starscream could make any sort of scathing comment. "Looks like it has a kind of petrochemical base. Specialised joint fluid, so it'd already be highly combustible, and later treated to increase its volatility. The labile compounds would have readily ignited and triggered a cascade response-"

"She _means_ someone took a flammable oil, and added chemicals to make it more unstable," Starscream added, before Skywarp could ask exactly _what _the analyst meant. "It evaporated to make a highly combustible vapour. All it needed was a spark."

"But it was under a fume hood!"

"Which wasn't turned on," Starscream made a face and indicated the dial, melted forever into the 'off' position. "Fumes would have probably collected to saturation point, under here. No wonder the stuff pretty much spontaneously combusted. One little spark, and it all went off."

"B-but I turned it on!" Calibrator stammered, trembling. "We could all hear it!"

"Doesn't mean our little saboteur didn't later turn it _off_," Starscream growled. "We already know we have a spy in the station, and plenty of folk unconnected to the forensics department had been in and out of the lab, lately. _Any _one of them could have been connected to Blue."

"The Chief Inspector has been in and out a lot lately, too, if memory serves," Skywarp added, pointedly.

Starscream glared at him, knowing what he was getting at. "Don't you say it, Warp," he threatened. "Don't even _think_ it! I'm _not_ going to go through all that again."

Skywarp lifted his chin, belligerently, and said it anyway. "Just because she's _your_ favourite Neutral doesn't mean she's innocent," he reminded, wrinkling his nose in a sneer, and turned to Calibrator. "What's the possibility that butch surgeon that helped Starscream could have done it?"

The analyst squirmed under the unfriendly stare. "Well, it's… yes, possible," she accepted. "But I would be forced to say improbable-"

"Why, because you've been talking to him?" Skywarp interrupted, jerking a thumb in Starscream's direction.

"No, well-… it's that-… they're different _disciplines_."

"Huh, figures that he's not getting it. Warp's never been so good with discipline," Thundercracker teased, gently, in an attempt to lighten the mood, and Starscream smiled even if Skywarp looked unimpressed and told him to shut up.

"So what exactly does that mean?" Skywarp wondered, and added, pithily, before either wingmate could make the same snipe at him; "and please, explain it in little, idiot-friendly words, so my kind and understanding wingmates don't have to expend their precious energy re-explaining it to Little Stupid, here?"

"Er, all right, well, what I _mean_ is… erm, well, they're completely different fields," she explained, and rubbed the back of her neck. "Surgery is basically advanced engineering, but whoever designed Blue would have needed to be chemically-minded. If you'd suggested Doctor Overhaul had done it, that would have made more sense, as his speciality is neurochemical and psych."

Skywarp directed a pleading glanced at her.

"Er, he knows how our brains work," she corrected herself.

Skywarp huffed quietly and folded his arms across his cockpit. "I still think we should be looking at her. Do a big single sweep of her property and see what we pick up. Everything points at her." He elevated his voice to be heard over Starscream's protests. "She has all the connections! She can get the raw materials, she's got access to _Vinculums_, she's at the hub of where all the addicts are ending up, she's strong enough to keep that stupid tractor in line, _and _she has the police contacts to stay one step ahead of us. We all saw her and Hardline canoodling earlier."

"I saw them discussing something like two normal machines while they were stood by the energon dispenser," Starscream corrected, irritably.

"Yeah yeah, whatever. Point I'm making is, the evidence points at her. There's nothing to say she's doing it alone, her and this 'Overhaul' guy could be working together!" Skywarp waved his arms. "At the hospital! _With all the supplies_!"

"Do you seriously think that the more often and the louder you repeat it, and the more likely I am to be convinced?" Starscream leaned across the table towards him, and matched him glare for glare.

"All right, this is me intervening," Thundercracker said, and for the second time that cycle put himself between them. "Come on, Warp, don't get yourself all worked up again. We can go find some energon, or something."

"I already refuelled," Skywarp replied, sulkily. "It's all right, TC, I know when I'm not wanted. Guess I'll just go _stand in a corner_ and keep out of the way, or something. It's obviously all I'm _good_ at."

"Skywarp doesn't want to over-energise? Screamer, there's something wrong with him!"

Thundercracker had meant it in jest, but Starscream's optics had a funny look in them anyway. "Clearly," he agreed, almost managing to look like he was just playing along.

Skywarp felt his insides contract down, defensively. Trust Screamer to suspect something.

There was a _tap-tap_ at the broken door, and the small group glanced up to find Hardline tightly framed in the doorway, his heavy head brushing against the lintel. "All right," the riot tank made a face at the ruined lab. "You lot figured out what happened?"

"You're not trying to get rid of us, by any chance, are you, Hardline?" Thundercracker asked.

Hardline shook his heavy head, ponderously. "The sooner you're out of the lab, the sooner we can get the cleanup crew in and the sooner we can fix the place up and let you all get back to work. Think much of this mess is salvageable?"

Starscream pfft-ed. "Everything is backed up to the last individual bit of data. We just need a mainframe and we can upload it. Plus, we have plenty of spare samples in the cold store down the corridor. We can keep working in the meantime, so long as there's a room with enough places to plug in the equipment."

"Fair enough. Guess you could use the conference suite, that'd just gathering dust right now." Hardline stepped to one side and allowed the small group to file out into the corridor, trailing blackened footprints. "You two ought to get a bit of rest," he suggested, directing his attention at Starscream and Calibrator. "You've not got your heads down and defragged since it all went off."

"Resting is almost at the top of my agenda," Calibrator agreed, faintly, as she and the red Seeker separated from the rest of the group and headed towards the galley. "After refuelling. If I can keep anything down. I never do well with stress."

Starscream glanced at Calibrator. "_Are_ you still scared, Cali?" he asked, half-smiling.

She examined her fingers, and managed – with a supreme effort of will – to get them to stop shaking. "A little," she confessed.

"Well you should be," he agreed. "Because if my guess is correct, someone wasn't just trying to make a point, they _were_ trying to kill us."

"You said you thought the explosive was underpowered for that…!" She looked up at him, optics wide.

"If the fume cupboard hadn't been closed, the explosion could have been a whole lot worse. It allowed the fumes to collect, certainly, _but_ it helped contain the blast, as well as stopping more fumes evaporating off when the air became saturated," he shrugged, loosely. "If the cupboard had been open, the fumes would have spread right through the lab, and probably to a dangerously high concentration as there was nothing to stop them reaching their saturation point early. The percussion we'd have endured if we'd been right _in_ the blast cloud could have stopped sparks altogether."

Her fingers resumed trembling.

0o0o0o0o0

Pulsar had returned off shift when Skywarp gusted past in the corridor with thunder in his expression, clipping her shoulder with a wingtip. Not sure why she felt obliged to do so, she followed him anyway – something was obviously not right, because he looked thoroughly peeved. "Skywarp? What's the matter?"

He was stubbornly silent for a moment or two, striding stiffly along, until it became clear she wasn't going to just frag off. "They suspect something," he muttered, at last.

She had to trot to match his blistering pace. "Well-… what exactly did you _say_ to them?"

"Nothing. That's just it. Screamer's just got all psychic, lately." He hitched his wings, almost buzzing with irritation. "I bet that green femme implanted something in his brain when she was 'fixing' him, something that lets him go all Soundwave and spy on our thoughts."

"You're not talking about Forceps, are you-?"

"Don't you _dare_ start on me as well. It's a valid concern," he snarled.

"I didn't mean-… that is… look, if they're onto you, you must have _said _someth-"

He stopped and turned so abruptly that she walked clean into him. "I said. Nothing," he ground out, waving a threatening arm as she staggered hastily back out of the way, holding her fractured side. He gave her a half-sneer. "And you should get that seen to before anyone starts asking _you_ questions."

"And tell them _what_, exactly?" she challenged. "That I fell down stairs?"

"Pfft. They'd probably buy that, too." He folded his arms and stared down his nose at her. "What _exactly _are you still following me for, anyway?"

She opened her mouth to fire off a retort, but nothing suitable would come to mind.

"Yeah, the gormless look suits you," he agreed, pithily, and resumed his way down the corridor. "Leave me alone."

"To do what?"

She would have lost him if not for the fact he was almost back at his dorm. He took three attempts to get the door open, stabbing at the keypad hard enough to snap one of the keys down the middle, and cracked a wing against the frame on his way in.

"Primus damn-… argh. This is so damn stupid…" His words faded into an irritable incoherence. There was a low semi-destructive-sounding rattle from his berth, and a plate from the wall clattered to the floor. A very dim blue glow mingled with the crimson from his optics.

"What are you doing?" Alarmed, she caught his wrist. "You can't be withdrawing already-!"

"I don't want to be so fragged off any more, all right?" he challenged, his optics glittering a dangerous crimson, and she let go of his wrist so fast he might as well have been hot, stumbled backwards, tripping on the wall-plate and ending up on her aft on Thundercracker's berth. "Any other time, fair enough, but when I'm teetering between keeping my own counsel and just blurting it all out? That might be all I need to crack and spill out both our secrets. So don't you lecture me on what is and is not a good idea."

"But we agreed that we'd only use enough to keep from withdrawing…!"

"I know what we _agreed_," he sneered, nonetheless taking a gulp from the cube. "That was _before_ I knew how antsy the stuff makes you. If it's a choice between snapping at everything, and _merry_, I'll take the latter."

"But what if they find out?"

The Basic had already eased his mood. "Oh, pfft. They're gonna find out sometime, anyway. If I look like I'm just over-energised, it might take them a while to catch on."

"Um, still. I think you've had enough," she counselled, gently, trying unsuccessfully to peel his fingers away from the cube. Over-energised was one thing, but being so stratospheric you couldn't walk in a straight line or do anything except _giggle_ wouldn't be too inconspicuous either.

"I'll be the judge of that," he disagreed, savouring each mouthful that scorched its way through his system. "Might as well _enjoy_ it, if I've got to take it. Here, want some?" He held the Basic out in her direction.

"I'm fine, thank you," she put up her hands. "I only topped up a little while ago."

"I didn't ask if you _needed_ any, I asked if you _wanted _some." The cube was still being held in her direction. "_Need _and _want _are not mutually inclusive."

For a moment she just stared at him, then laughed.

"What's so funny?" For once, he sounded confused, not indignant.

"Nothing, you're just-… just…" She waved her hands, and gave him a genuine smile. "You're smarter than you let on, sometimes."

He made a little pleased sound, and shrugged-… then took her by surprise. "Come on, I'm not going to over-energise on my own," he instructed, and almost forced the cube onto her. "Just _have _some, already."

"But what if your wingmates come in-?" She closed her fingers over where his were wrapped around the cube, held him away. The cube was a handsbreadth from her nose.

"Tch, they won't. Screamer's busy being geeky, TC is out on patrol." He coaxed it closer. "If that's all you're worried about…"

"Well, not _all_…" She stared down into the shifting violet suspension in the cube, it looked almost murky, against the bright fingers wrapped around the outside, under her palms-… She tore her gaze away and only succeeded in meeting his amused stare across the top of the cube, which was worse than gazing down on his fingers. "Uh, that is-"

He arched his optic ridges, amusedly, and guided the cube up to her lips.

"That's-…" She licked her lips, thoughtfully, and considered the subtler feel of the integrating Basic. "That's, um… nicer than Ruin." It had the same kick to it, but it wasn't quite so vehement as Ruin – Ruin let you _know _how potent it was, kicking right in the midriff and making the pumps jerk hard, but Basic was… softer. Smoother. It integrated like a whisper of silk. Actually wasn't all that bad.

"More?" he wondered, with a half-smirk.

"Please!"

0o0o0o0o0

"And where _did _you and the constable slink off to, earlier?" Prowl asked, darkly, when Skywarp finally appeared in the small galley. "We saw you arrive back together. What were you up to?"

"Just went for a walk." Skywarp lifted his chin, defensively. "What business is it of yours, anyway?"

"I think you'll find _everything_ is my business when it comes to Security."

"Oh, blow it out your afterburners, you overinflated paper-pusher," Skywarp waved a hand, airily, and glided past, towards the energon dispensers. "If Hardline's not bothered, why should _you_ be, on his behalf?"

"The Chief Inspector probably has more important things on his mind, like _exploding laboratories_. I can't possibly imagine you'd know much about _that_?"

Skywarp snorted, and waved a mug in Prowl's face. "If you think I'm smart enough to design a spontaneously combusting explosive, then I'd say you have a smidgen of a problem."

Sitting in the corner of the galley, two machines were watching the exchange with increasing dismay. Thundercracker caught his wingmate's eye, and they exchanged a brief but meaningful glance. "_You thinking what I'm thinking?_" he wondered, over their private channel.

"_I hope not_," Starscream replied, grimly. "_Because _I_ think Warp is high_."


	22. Chapter 22

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Twenty-Two**

**Disclaimer:** As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. (...Except where they're obviously OCs, which Hasbro would be silly to want to claim.)

**A/N:** The italicised speech at the front of the chapter refers, as usual, to silent discussion over private communications.

Haven't been able to FULLY typo-check this one, but I think I caught most of the most obvious ones. Sorry this one's a bit long - I have a place where I know I want to drop things, and then it takes forever to get there. But anyway! Onward!

Edit: Corrected some typos, but the editor seems to be messing up my placements at the bottom of the page. I apologise for weirdnesses.

* * *

"_High? You're sure?_" Thundercracker gave Starscream a serious look. "_That must have been why he was accusing me of putting sucrose in his energon, one morning._"

"_So you knew about this, and didn't think it was important enough to tell me?_" Starscream shot him a glare, looking almost betrayed.

"_…to be honest? No. You know how he likes to make a fuss, especially over anything Autobot-related. I just figured it was another of his silly complaints-for-complaining's-sake._" Thundercracker studied his fingers, and shrugged, guiltily. "_Besides, how was he going to have got hold of anything to be suspicious of, in the first place? The three of us hadn't been apart a whole lot since we finally found you, and we didn't exactly have time beforehand. It wasn't even something that crossed my mind_."

Starscream's glare softened. "_Which means someone's landed him in it by trickery._"

There was a pause, and shared, meaningful glances. "_Do you suppose it might have been that femme? She's been hanging around kind of a lot._"

"_Entirely possible_." Starscream nodded, grimly. "_If not for the fact that I knew her _before_ we three were reunited, she'd have been my first suspect. Fact is, though, she knows Sepp, and that's probably the sole connection, as it stands so far_."

"_But what could she possibly get out of it?_"

"_Does it matter? If she's their little spy in the station, she's probably just doing what she's told. They probably pay her in Blue, so it doesn't take much to work out _why_._" Starscream watched as his wingmate continued his half-argument with Prowl; Skywarp didn't look like he was in any particular mood to make an effort to _win_ the argument, trying to duck past him and get to the other members of his trine, but there was always one Autobot or another in his way and he looked stressed.

"_It's pretty arbitrary, right now,_" Starscream suggested, while they still had the chance to discuss things. "_First we'll get what samples we need from Warp to prove he's on something, _then_ we'll sit on him and grill him for what he knows_."

Thundercracker gave him a grim look. "_Come on, Screamer, we'll never get him to just sit quiet and admit it_._ We're all far too proud for our own good._"

"_Maybe not outright, but we're sneaky horrible evil Decepticons, remember? If I can get him to volunteer a sample of his energon, we can run that through the _Vinculum,_ and if a fractal shows up, we've got him. If he refuses a sample, we've got him. Either way, if he's on Blue, we've got him. Right?_"

"_…right._"

"_Okay. I'll go fetch some fuel aspirators, you cook up an excuse_," Starscream instructed, sliding out of his seat _just_ as Skywarp managed to get past Prowl. "_I doubt he'll have any counter measures in place. I'll call you when I'm ready._"

Skywarp made a pouty face at the departing red back, and sipped at his energon. "I guess this means I'm unacceptable company as well as the assigned local idiot," he pointed out, hurt.

Thundercracker gave him a small smile. "I don't think hurting your feelings were part of his plan, Warp. He's just busy."

"He's _always_ busy," Skywarp corrected, glaring and twirling the energon container between thumb and forefinger. "He's just not _always_ such an… an _aft_ about it."

They just sat and chatted, quietly, for a little while, zoning out the Autobots in the background, who paid them no attention right back. Funny how easy that had got, lately – right now, they were comfortably united under the chequered blue and yellow, and a machine's faction was just something to be used if losing an argument and needing a little leverage. Still, Skywarp was definitely in a funny mood – he had an unfamiliar, shifty guardedness about him, as if he was talking to a hostile Autobot, not his wingmate.

"You know, if you stopped _acting_ suspicious, maybe Screamer wouldn't _suspect_ you," Thundercracker counselled, with a little smile, after Skywarp had complained about them not trusting him for the third time in almost as many astro-seconds.

Skywarp vibrated air over his vents in a passable approximation of a disgruntled raspberry, and pouted, looking deeply wounded. "Taking his side again, TC."

"So don't put me in a position where I have to take sides, glitch." Thundercracker gave him a light swat around the audio vents, and his smile faded. "Frag it, Warp," he said, in a hushed voice. "Both of us know you've got yourself way too deep in this, and I want to help you drag your skinny carapace out of it, but you're not giving me a whole lot of options!"

"I don't _need_ help," Skywarp sulked, but his wings had sagged and he'd tucked his head down closer to his hunched shoulders. "You're all reading a load of complete old slag into this."

"For a ranking Decepticon, you seem to have lost your ability to lie," Thundercracker shot back, exasperated. "Just come out and say it, Skywarp." He leaned closer, palms flat on the table, and all but jammed his face physically against Skywarp's. "You can keep up this silly façade and hope it'll go away on its own, or you can let us help you. It'll all come to the surface sooner or later, and it'll be better for you if you make it _sooner_."

Skywarp glanced up, and met his wingmate's gaze. He had such a woebegone look on his face that Thundercracker felt like he'd kicked a puppy… but he fidgeted, didn't outright deny all charges, and looked like he was weighing something up in his mind-

"_TC?_" said a little voice in the back of Thundercracker's brain. "_Want to come up? We need to make this look believable_."

"_Primus damnit to the slagging __Pit__, Screamer, I almost had him!_" Thundercracker cursed over their private channel. He could see that Skywarp had already clammed back up – his lips were set in a pout and he didn't look like he was going to be drawn out any more. "_Make __what__ look believable, anyway?_"

"_Obligatory testing. Come on. You'll get another chance at bending his audios later._"

Thundercracker's wince at Starscream's _no-nonsense-tolerated_ tone of voice was absolutely genuine. Skywarp would now have _two_ appropriate targets for his irritability. "Guess I better get this over with," he grumbled, getting to his feet. "This stupid testing thing they're bringing in is going to mess everyone up. See you in a breem or two."

"_You're_ fragging off as well, now, TC?" Skywarp's voice was heavy with affront. "You only have to say if I've committed such a grave offence no-one wants to be seen with me, any more."

Thundercracker managed an offhand smile. "Ah, don't be such a worrier, you'll get your turn. The Screaming One will call for you soon enough."

"Turn at _what_?"

"Testing. Enjoy your energon!"

"TC, what testing? Hey, no fair! _What testing?_" Skywarp yelled after him, but the blue Seeker gave him a silly wave and vanished through the doorway. "Fragging glitches," he muttered into his flask. "Sneaking about."

0o0o0o0

The cleanup crew were still hard at work in the laboratory, so Starscream had set up the testing station in the unused District Commissioners' office. It was little more than a stool and small table by the broad, grimy window, right now, but it served its purpose.

"Ah, Skywarp. You took your time getting here."

"What's going on?" Skywarp edged his way in, warily, as if expecting to be jumped on at any second.

Starscream gestured to the chair, loading a new vial into his aspirator. "Park your aft here, a moment."

"Why?" Skywarp narrowed his optics and made no move to do as asked.

"Please?" Starscream forced a smile, and patted the seat, when really he wanted to throttle him, get him in a headlock and take his fuel sample that way. "Just sit. This won't take long."

After a further moment of narrowed-optic thought, Skywarp gave a wordless little grumble, but complied, plopping his weight heavily down on the little stool. "What are you doing, anyway?" He swung his legs, fidgety.

"Just taking a quick sample of your energon," Starscream reassured, touching his fingers lightly to his wingmate's helm and tilting his head forwards so he could access the relay that ran between his shoulders. "Don't worry, it won't impair your functioning."

"What do you want _that_ for?" Skywarp put his head straight back up, prompting a faint mutter of irritation from behind.

"Oh, it's going to be obligatory, from now on. I just finished with TC, Cali did mine, and now it's your turn," the red Seeker explained, hoping Skywarp wouldn't pick up on the lie, and gestured to the small vial of fuel to one side, labelled in his excruciatingly neat handwriting. "As well as spot checks, everyone with any significant time outside the station is going through it," he added. "Just a precautionary measure, especially if an officer has been away the length of time you were gone for."

"Don't you trust me?"

"Why all the questions?" Starscream patted his shoulder vent, and Skywarp huffed, suspiciously. "Come on. Head down." He touched the aspirator needle to the toughened vessel, and pushed carefully downwards.

Skywarp winced and stiffened as the needle punctured the fuel line, and fidgeted his feet as the vial hissed quietly to capacity. "Is that all you need?" It didn't so much _hurt_ as make him deeply uneasy. Any minute now, sirens would start to wail and a phalanx of Policebots would descend on him and he'd be whisked away to a secure facility somewhere, labelled up as a traitor.

"That's all I need," Starscream confirmed, checking the vial and carefully pulling the aspirator away. The elastomeric fuel line self-healed as the needle came free, and a brief spray of sealant from the aspirator nozzle finalised the job. "All right, you can go back to pestering TC, or whatever you were doing before."

"It'd be nice if you were a little less _disparaging_ every once in a while," Skywarp muttered, slumping down off the stool and rubbing the back of his neck, absently. At least no sirens had started.

"Look, I'm not sure if the concept just sailed right past you, but right now you are worrying us," Starscream corrected, making sure he enunciated every word perfectly so Skywarp had no chance to claim misunderstanding. "Your behaviour is… odd."

"I would have thought that was a given, since we're cohabiting with _Auto-dorks_ and not _killing_ them."

"Speaking of which, want to _explain_ about that Autobot?"

"Explain _what,_ exactly?" Skywarp folded his arms over his chest. "There's nothing _to_ explain."

"Explain the connection between the pair of you," Starscream prompted. "You're being completely blatant about it, and I don't know why you're also expecting people not to _notice_."

Skywarp made a noise of exasperation and threw his arms up. "There's nothing going on. I don't know why everyone's making such a big deal about it!"

"Which is what is worrying me and TC! If it's not just you desperate to prove your virility, after all these vorns, what exactly are the two of you getting out of it?" Starscream gave him a probing look. "Is there _anything else_ being exchanged?" He didn't outright say 'Blue', but Skywarp knew what he meant.

Skywarp glared and poked out his tongue. _Better throw him off the scent._ "Better be careful, Screamer, people will start thinking you're just sour and making _my _life hard because _you're _not getting any," he sniped, dangerously.

Starscream was silent for several long moments, before wrinkling his nose in an unimpressed little half-smirk half-sneer. "Well, at least we're getting somewhere with _that_ aspect," he shot back. "You admit there's a touch of the _in flagrante_ about your liaisons."

"A touch of the _what_?" Skywarp matched him glare for glare. "Look, actually, don't bother explaining, because I know you're only being your usual caring, charitable self. I'll show myself out."

0o0o0o0

Skywarp passed two of the gravity-cycles in the corridor and figured Pulsar must either be about to go off on shift, or had just got back off duty. If Starscream was already on his trail, it'd only be so long before he caught up with the Policebot and tested _her_, and since she'd already proved she was a little lacking in moral fibre… She'd probably fold like a wet paper bag if Starscream questioned her. He found her busy studying the duty roster, thankfully alone.

"Hey, you," he gave her a jab in the torso, making her jump.

"What?" At least he'd had the decency to prod at her undamaged side.

"Might want to make sure you've got some clean energon in your system, somewhere," Skywarp warned, softly, leaning closer to her audio. "Screamer's got a fuel aspirator, and he's not afraid to use it. I managed to flush some clean energon through the line before he stabbed me, but it was more by luck than planning."

"They're testing?" Her spark sank. Random testing meant there'd only be so many chances of slipping the net. "How long have they been doing it for?"

"I don't know. Screamer _said _it was obligatory, but I think he was just trying to trick me into volunteering a sample," Skywarp mused. "Still. You ought to be prepared. They might think it's a good idea, and bring it in across the board."

"Well, uh-… thanks," she murmured.

"Tch, didn't warn you for your sake. If they catch you, how long before the paper trail leads back to _me_?" He made a face. "It's like they already figure you're the way the stuff got into the station in the first place, they'll probably target you next."

"Still, the sentiment's the same. Thanks for telling me-" The meaning behind the latter part of Skywarp's grumble finally sank in. "Wait, what was that last part?"

"Starscream's onto us, big-time," he explained, letting his voice descend into a lower murmur as two hovercars headed out past them, grumbling about having to quell another riot outside the hospital. "Seriously, he's got some sort of sixth sense going on, no-one can be that clever. He said we must be 'swapping something' if we weren't having _in flagrante _liaisons, whatever that is."

"That could mean anything."

"Yeah, but you and me both know it _doesn't_. It means-…" Skywarp glanced over his shoulder, and dropped his voice even lower, so hushed that she had to boost the gain on her audios just to catch it. "He _means_ the medication. If we're not making inappropriate advances behind closed doors, we're pooling _other_ resources."

She wrinkled her lip, in an unimpressed smile. "I _would_ say we should just work on the other aspect, just to get them off our case, but neither of us want to have to go through all that again in public."

Skywarp snickered, quietly. "The self-righteous horror on some of your colleagues faces' would be good to see, though."

She grinned back, in spite of herself. "Mm, it'd almost be worth it for that."

Skywarp pursed his lips, debating something internally.

"Was there something else?" she prompted.

"Nah," he shook his head, and patted her shoulder. "Just remember what I said."

She watched the powerful wings amble nonchalantly away, and felt something odd flash through her processors. Before she could study it too deeply, her private communicator bleeped at her – just Cali, wanting company before her surgery.

…in her whole life, almost, she'd never been so glad to be distracted away from the case in hand.

0o0o0o0

Thundercracker knew instinctually that something was wrong, when Starscream had kept himself tucked away in the testing room for long after the tests should have been finished, but he couldn't imagine what it might be. When he put his head around the door, the white elbows were propped on the table, and the dark cheeks rested in tired hands, and azure optics stared without seeing down onto the _Vinculum_'s screen.

Thundercracker waved a hand to attract his attention, from the other side of the bench. "Well?"

Starscream's narrowed optics had dimmed to such a low shade of blue they were almost violet, and his lips were compressed into a thin line of irritation. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but the glitch is actually _clean_," he groused, releasing one hand from under his chin to stab a pointless new command into the _Vinculum_'s control panel.

"What?" Thundercracker straightened, looking genuinely startled. "That's impossible, we both saw how he was acting! You must have run the test wrong."

Starscream bristled. "I'll thank you _not_ to tell me how to run the test _I_ devised," he snapped, straightening up and waving a threatening finger.

"Hey, hey, no need to bite," Thundercracker backed off, hands up. "It was a fair comment."

"I know, I know. I just-…" Starscream vented exhaust in a tired huff, and rubbed his face with both hands. "For once he's being trickier than the pair of us put together," he sighed. "We're going to have to bite the bullet and bring the Autobots in."

"And advertise to all of them that Warp might be the weak link in the chain?" Thundercracker plopped his weight down on the stool. "They'll take all three of us off the case, you know. They'll say they were right, that they can't trust us, and they need to stick us all back in cells."

"We don't have to name names," Starscream disagreed. "We just know 'someone' has a problem. Let's face it, we can probably say with absolute certainty that Warp isn't alone in this. He got his problem from somewhere, after all, and it wasn't either of us, ergo, we have an Autobot with a problem as well. Probably whats-her-face, Constable Pulsar, and I'll be shocked if she's the only one. If they arrest us, with no foundation to the action, they'll have to arrest _everyone_."

0o0o0o0

Calibrator was staying in her tiny suite just above the barracks, a few short strides down the corridor from the laboratory. In the beginning, while things were just ticking over quietly, she didn't often stay behind after work, but now things had started to pick up Hardline had deemed it appropriate. Wasn't safe for someone like her to be out alone. The 'suite' was little more than a dormitory – a single berth, a workstation, and a small table and easy chair. There wasn't even any sort of facility for the storage of energon, because the galley was considered close enough that it was unnecessary.

Forceps had called in with the announcement that she had the components that were needed, and Calibrator had been booked into the minor surgery unit at the district general to get the repairs done the next time she was on shift, in about an orn's time. The analyst – who hadn't got back to work since the accident, aside from her brief determination of what had happened at the lab – had fidgeted for a cycle or two on her own before calling for company.

Pulsar arrived with a flask of chilled energon in hand. "Hey, Cali. You all right?"

"Pulse!" Calibrator looked relieved to see a friendly face, grinning nervously. "You wouldn't believe the jitters I've got. Feels like I'm out in an ion storm! Well, come in, come in," she gathered her friend through the door. "I hope I've not disturbed anything…"

"I'd just got back off shift," the grav-cycle reassured. "Fetched some fuel for you, too." She offered the flask, which Calibrator took with a murmur of thanks and set down on the table, but didn't seem inclined to use. "You're not going to refuel? Surely you're getting low, by now."

"Yes, well, my tanks _need _to be low," Calibrator explained, with an awkward shrug. "Doctors' orders. I suppose they want as little energon vapour in the air as possible, while they're welding. They'll have me on a support generator while they operate." She shifted her feet. "Besides, I don't think I'd keep it down very well, my pumps keep trying to purge my lines, as it is. First time I've had surgery in _very_ long time."

"You needn't be worried," Pulsar counselled. "Forceps is one of the best."

"Oh, I have every confidence in her surgical ability – it's not _that_ which I've got the jitters about." The analyst shook her head, and smiled, guiltily. "What if your Seeker friend is right, and she _is_ the ringleader? Someone's tried to kill me once already, what if this is just the chance they need to try again, to finish the job?"

"He's only trying to be helpful." Pulsar managed a faint smile. "I don't think he's realised what a pain he's making himself into. He's kinda… harmless, otherwise, I figure."

"But then, if rumour is to be believed, you're a little biased, eh, Pulse?"

"Oh don't _you_ start that as well," Pulsar folded her arms and pouted, good-humouredly. "I had enough of that from Whitesides. He's completely hung up on the idea I'm having some sort of illicit affair. And speaking of him, the two of you looked pretty close, out in the yard after they started cleanup. Dare I insinuate some sort of pairing between the two of you as well?"

Calibrator laughed, faintly, and looked a little embarrassed, smoothing invisible folds out of her lab wrap with her good hand. "There's nothing wrong with a little companionship from the other gender," she defended herself. "Whitesides was just being gentlemanly, and he's quite the attractive little thing, I don't mind him paying a clunky femme like me a little attention. And you don't have to be _so_ defensive about that Seeker – it only makes it look like you have something to hide."

"_Cali_-!"

"Would it be such a bad thing to see where this thing the two of you have takes you?" Calibrator went on, as if oblivious. "There's some sort of a spark there, after all!"

"Calibrator, he's a _Decepticon._" Pulsar sulked. "He's everything that's the opposite of what I am!"

"He's good looking, and he matches your temper," Calibrator argued, amusedly. "What more do you need?"

Pulsar tucked her feet up onto the chair and hugged her knees. "I am not going to discuss this any further with you, you're just going to be one-track all night," she complained, sullenly. "I only defended Sepp because I know she's innocent. And Skywarp is just an idiot, you shouldn't listen to a word that burbles from his vocaliser."

"By Primus, I really touched a sore sensor, didn't I?" Calibrator teased. "You must really be _smitten_."

Knowing she'd been backed into a corner, Pulsar maintained a sulky silence – the mood Calibrator was in, protesting would be just as good a proof of the imagined affair as just outright saying 'yes I _do_ think he's the best-looking example of masculinity this side of Alpha Centauri'.

"Here, you have this. You look like you need it far more than I do. No offence, love, but you look rough," Calibrator said, with a faint smile, offering the container of chilled energon back to her. "Really, _really_ rough."

"I _feel_ it, too." Pulsar hunched herself down in the chair and turned the flask between her fingers, sullenly, lower lip curled in a pout. "Listen, Cali… can I talk to you about something for a minute? In confidence?"

The analyst nodded, amiably. "You know you can always talk to me about anything," she reassured.

"Yeah, I know, but this is different to normal. And no, I'm not about to admit to a secret liaison with you-know-who, this is a smidge more serious than that."

"Oh-kay… Um, if I'm overstepping a boundary, you will tell me, I hope, and you know I don't mean any offence by asking this, but…" Calibrator leaned down closer to her. "How connected to this _are_ you?"

"A lot closer than I want to be," Pulsar confessed, hollowly. "It was what I wanted to talk to you about."

Calibrator gave her a probing look, then straightened, a look of transient horror flicking through her features. "Oh, no. Oh, Pulse, tell me you didn't-"

"You need to find a cure for this thing, Cali," she said, softly. "Before the whole world gets sucked in."

0o0o0o0

Fatigue arranged a supply drop to the two Police officers the usual way – a couriered data wafer, this time addressed to Skywarp but just as impossible to hack into, containing the usual cryptic date, time and location. It was an abandoned mail depot, conveniently along Skywarp's patrol route, just past where his and Pulsar's patrol routes intersected. The two addicts did their round in double-quick time, met up promptly, and headed away to the depot together, neither particularly willing to turn up alone.

"Warp?" Pulsar caught the dark Seeker's fingers, just before they passed the threshold into the gloomy building.

He bristled at the use of his nickname, and the uninvited intrusion into his personal space, but didn't say anything about it – and more importantly didn't jerk his hand back. "What?"

She bit her lip, then shook her head, awkwardly. "I'm sorry, I just-… I'm… nervous," she admitted, as if it should come as some sort of surprise. "One of these days they're going to ask us to do something we can't do. And I don't just mean _physically _can't, I mean… _can't_. Things won't stay as easy as they have done for much longer-!"

_You're not just __nervous__, you're just about in meltdown,_ Skywarp mused, observing the way her fingertips were shaking so hard they were vibrating, but didn't vocalise it. "So we'll get out of this before they ask," he counselled, grimly, leading the way into the building. It was dark and set off his claustrophobia – which was probably why they'd chosen it – but he kept his chin up and his shoulders square. Pulsar's fingers had tightened around his, so she obviously didn't particularly like the dark, either. "Our two geeks will get that antidote sorted, we'll get off the program, then we'll come back and show them why they don't tangle with the likes of us."

"Right," she agreed, alarmedly tucking herself close to his wings as Fatigue's pale amber optics appeared in the gloom and startled her. The tractor gave her an amused grin; she promptly dropped Skywarp's hand, as if it was hot, and tried to look nonchalant.

Siphon emerged from behind Fatigue, slowly. "All right, you two. First things first. It has come to our attention," he said, softly, as ever acting as spokesmech for his fellow loyalists, "that certain individuals, naming no names, might be onto you. Ergo, this will be your last supply unless you resolve the issue."

Skywarp knew exactly what he was getting at – rumours of mandatory testing had spread like wildlife through the station, and although it hadn't yet actually been brought in, most people were of the opinion that it _would_ be, and sooner rather than later. "I don't know what you mean," he lied, smoothly. "We've not anything slip, just as instructed."

Siphon gave him a glare. "That's as may be, but our observers around the station-"

_Interesting – confirmed there was more than one other individual with a problem_, Skywarp mused.

"-have noticed that your wing-mates are acting increasingly suspicious of you. And we need you to get them off the trail." The tanker lifted his chin, belligerently. "Do whatever it takes to achieve this aim."

"I don't think you realise how _smart_ Starscream actually _is_," Skywarp disagreed. "It won't be so easy as just 'throwing a spanner into the works.' Even when someone blew up the lab it didn't get him off the trail! So what do you think an idiot like _me _will be able to achieve?"

Siphon held out a data-wafer. "This wafer contains a set of programs that you'll put into the _Vinculum_ he's using," he instructed, coldly. "It'll make his testing worthless when it throws up false positives, and not only will it get _you_ off the hook in the process, it'll land _him_ in hot smeltings with the superintendent. In the interim, you plant false data. You muddle his results. You contaminate his samples. We don't care what you do, so long as you do it."

"I won't be able to get close enough to the lab without it looking suspicious," Skywarp argued, but sensed that particular argument wouldn't hold a lot of water. If their spy – sp_ies_ – in the station had noticed Starscream and Thundercracker's increasing suspicion, they'd sure have noticed that he was in and out of the lab to pester the red Seeker on a fairly regular basis. "Let alone upload your program onto his _Vinculum_."

"All right, you listen to me, you confused little Policecon Deceptibot whatever-the-frag-it-is-you're-calling-yourself-these-days…" Fatigue was as short on patience as ever; he pushed in front of Siphon and glared down on Skywarp. "Either you take the damn hint, and throw your illustrious wing-commander off the trail – or off the docks with his own weight in concrete around his thrusters, either is acceptable – or else we'll take steps to neutralise _all three of you_. You're not so special, no matter _what_ the Boss says."

Skywarp backed up a single step, and folded his arms, defensively. "Even if I _do_, it won't stop them bringing the testing in," he reminded, grimly.

"That's irrelevant," Fatigue growled. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Pulsar flashing her curves at Deuce and trying to bribe a couple of extra cubes off him, supplementary to her actual allowance – and the idiot truck was actually giving in to persuasion. It was taking every ounce of self-control not to flatten both of them with a swing of his fist. "If you get Siphon's program installed, it won't matter how much and how often they test, there'll be enough doubt to make it worthless. And it'll get Starscream out of the picture – he's the biggest threat to us, right now." He dumped a handful of Basic into Skywarp's hands, and narrowed his optics at him. "Think about it. _Withdrawing_ will be a fantastic way of proving you're addicted, to them. Want to spend the next few dozen orns in a police cell, shaking yourself to pieces?"

Skywarp shook his head, tucking the cubes safely into his subspace. "I'll see what I can do," he agreed, at last, turning the data-wafer over in his fingers. "Just don't expect miracles."

"You know, Boss, I don't think he's gonna be useful," Fatigue growled, watching as the pair darted away and back onto their respective patrol routes before too much suspicion could be raised. "We should off him now before he causes more problems, because you can guarantee he'll louse up what we told him to do."

"I already have a small diversion planned for the other pair," the Boss disagreed, sweetly; they were present only as a video link, but had watched the entire exchange with a silent interest. "We can keep them quite busy enough while we work out how to deal with _our_ Seeker."

"_Can_ we do anything with him?" Siphon sounded doubtful. "He's pretty uncontrollable, if you ask me. Even the sort of direct instructions that work on most other addicts seem pretty pointless, he wriggles his way out of them."

"I agree, Siphon. So far, Skywarp has been an indulgent experiment that can never come to a useful conclusion," the Boss agreed, regretfully. "He is just too wilful. He can not be trusted. But! Crisis Blue will tame him."

Fatigue glanced briefly down at the communications display, then back up at the dwindling dark speck. "Weren't we going to wait a while before giving him that?"

"We were, yes. Unfortunately, I think that if we dally, we may lose him altogether. He knows too much to be allowed free egress from the program, and keeping him in solitude will not only waste time and resources, it will not break him." There was a pause, and a sigh. "Although I do not desire to do this, my hand has been forced. Next time he comes to us, arrange to meet at the landing stage on the western dock, district nine. If we cannot persuade him that Crisis is the way to go, we at least will have plenty of places to hide his body…"

0o0o0o0

Behind the grimy glass windows of the deserted tower-block foyer in front of the hospital, two pairs of hostile optics watched as the steady stream of departing patients, visitors and off-duty medics dwindled. The pair of loyalists had lounged on the vandalised furniture for several cycles, watched as Calibrator headed inside and her police escort departed, and kept a very close eye on the front entrance while they waited for her to return. Patients came and went in a steady stream – some walked, some were carried – and there were spots of increased activity during visiting times.

Finally, a tall green figure and a tall pale blue figure appeared, and stood around outside swapping small talk with some of the other scurrying white and green and blue figures until a much smaller dark-painted figure appeared. The dark figure stood with the pale green one, and after a moment or two and some protracted goodbyes and see-you-tomorrows, the two femmes turned away and set off down the street.

"Is that the one?" Deuce asked, softly, leaning closer to the window.

Fatigue watched for a moment, then nodded. "That's her. Guess she's gonna walk her home."

"What, just in case we might be lurking in the shadows?"

The pair shared a snicker, then moved out into the street. No-one paid them any notice – they'd let themselves deliberately get scruffy, so the passers-by probably took them for empties, lurking in the abandoned building because it was as good a place as any to keep out of the elements.

"Hold back," the tractor instructed, quietly, shuffling tiredly with his head down, and Deuce fell back a step or two to match his truncated stride. "We don't want her to realise we're here."

They tailed the two females at a respectable distance, until they reached the police station, and vanished in through the front doors. Quarry lost, the loyalists drifted into the shadows, irritably.

Deuce glowered at the double doors, as if he could somehow get the pair to come back out by force of glare alone. "_Now_ what do we do? Boss didn't tell us _this_ might happen."

"We wait." Fatigue hunkered down into the shadows, contracting down on himself like a predatory beetle. "Won't be in there all orn, we can pick up the trail when they come back out."

0o0o0o0

"Prowl?"

The Autobot glanced up. "Starscream," he greeted, guardedly. The hostility between the two was veiled, for once, but the potential for it almost made the air crackle.

The Seeker moved into the room, glanced briefly from side to side to check they were alone. "We need to talk," he said, softly.

"About?"

Starscream plucked something out of his subspace, and cast it onto the table between them.

…Three small, empty cubes.

"These are not from my study. These have been brought in from outside," he said, reluctantly.

"Just confirm for me exactly what 'these' are?" Prowl challenged, softly, even though both already knew he knew exactly what they were.

"These are empty Blue containers," Starscream explained. "Someone here has a problem. And I have my suspicions who."

Prowl steered a cube along the tabletop with a finger, and felt his spark sink. "I'd say that if we have an addict in our staff, we _all_ have a problem."

0o0o0o0

It was one of those days where the end of her shift couldn't come soon enough, for Forceps. Calibrator hadn't been the only one on the list for surgery, but she'd been the only one to look like she'd have happily been anywhere _but_ the hospital. Forceps had offered to walk her home – the spindly little femme wouldn't have stood a chance against a group capable of tearing a Decepticon warrior to pieces.

There had been a strange sensation of being followed, all the way to the police station, but when she'd looked there'd been no-one. Thankfully, the crawling sensation of being watched had been gone, when she finally left Calibrator in her little suite, with some mild sedatives and instructions to keep the arm immobilised as much as possible while the new components knitted in. The streets had been clear, and the short walk home had been completely uneventful.

It had been a little unexpected to bump into Starscream again, the day before. At least it was good confirmation he was still functioning well, and still in one piece – and that damn femoral pump wasn't giving him any more gyp. And bless him, that dark one was still hung up on the idea she was a criminal mastermind, plotting their demise. It would have been amusing if he wasn't quite so _persistent_ in his accusations.

She palmed the lock on the front door and allowed herself inside, looking forward to a nice cool flask of high-grade and a doze while she waited for Spotweld to get home. He was doing a late shift and wouldn't be back for some cycles, yet, but he'd probably need another new batch of dents working out of his carapace by the time he made it through the front door. She settled in front of her computer, and flagged up her journal list – the latest issue of _International Augments _would have been published today, as would _Groundwork_ – they'd keep her busy for a good few breems or so.

She was only halfway through _Augments_ Correspondences page when a little _clink_ of sound disturbed her from her reading. She glanced up, curiously, replaying the noise over in her mind and trying to work out where it had come from. Sounded like something hard striking against maybe… glass…? She nudged the energon flask on her desk with a forefinger, and knocked it gently against the computer terminal, but it made a dull _thud_, not the high bright _clink_ of glass. Obviously wasn't _that_, then.

There was another _tink_, this time clearly from one of the windows. Sounded like someone was throwing things. She stood, irritably, and paced to the front door; if someone wanted her attention, there were far better ways of getting it – like the doorbell, for instance, that was an excellent way of announcing your presence. Pausing very briefly, until there was another anticipated _tink_, she threw the door wide open and stomped outside, hoping to catch a glimpse of the idiot playing mind-games… but there was nothing. Not even the flicker of startled optics, or a scurrying blob vanishing into the shadows. The street was deserted. If someone was playing stupid games, they weren't doing it anywhere close by.

She grumbled quietly under her breath and turned to go back indoors, and there was another _clink_.

"Look, I'm not in the mood for anyone's stupidity," she told the darkness, making sure her voice was loud enough to be heard by anyone lurking in the pools of shadow across the street. "If someone wants something, they better come out and say so!"

There was another _clink_, from the window on the opposite side this time.

"_I mean it_," she added, folding her arms and lifting her chin. "If you keep throwing things, and remain in hiding, I will be returning inside. I have no time for cowards! If you _want_ me, come forwards!"

There was a soft little chuckle, and a pair of dull amber optics emerged from the shadows.

"Hello, surgeon," a sweet, sibilant voice purred. "We have matters to discuss…"

0o0o0o0

The foyer by the duty roster was unusually crowded, when Skywarp arrived back. At first he guessed there must be a new rota out, but then he noticed Thundercracker at the back of the room, where his wings wouldn't get in the way, and Starscream at the front, next to Prowl, looking… unusually severe. Must be some sort of important briefing. Skywarp slunk in, trying to go unnoticed, but was painfully aware of Starscream's optics burning into the back of his helm, and felt like he was juuust about to be called to account in front of everyone, and made an example of. At least he and Pulsar had got separated, so no insinuations could be levelled at him – although she was conspicuous in absence, which made him a little concerned that Fatigue or one of his cronies had grabbed her on her way back.

He leaned closer to Thundercracker, and asked, softly; "Just got back off duty. What's going on?"

"Screamer's arranged some sort of briefing," Thundercracker replied, equally quietly. "Not sure what about, just that it's some sort of joint thing between departments…"

At the front of the assembly, Prowl took a step forwards, and the murmuring voices ceased. Starscream remained lurking behind, arms folded, expression studiously concerned, but now Prowl had moved it was easy to see the aspirator that dangled threateningly from his blue fingers.

"It has come to our attention," Prowl said, grimly, speaking for both of them, "that more Blue has been coming onto the premises than the permitted study volume. We're not sure of the source, but we have the empty cubes to prove it. So we're going to impose a curfew. Three orns, no-one goes in or out without being screened."

"Said screening," Starscream added, sternly, "will be both mandatory, and random. You will be tested when returning from a patrol, and at arbitrary intervals between. Refuse a sample, and I'll just null-ray you and get it that way. Is that understood?"

There was a mumble of annoyed agreement from the gathered officers, but no overt complaints.

"Winnower's team and I will be carrying out the testing," he went on. "And I will _know _if you are avoiding me in the hope of getting Winnower instead. He will _not_ be the soft touch you are all hoping for!"

"We are _not_ trying to catch you out," Prowl added, quietly. "We are testing for Blue, and Blue only."

"And you will _all _co-operate with your superior officers," Boxer added, grimly, lifting a finger, and there was another of those simmery ripples of irritation. "That they are not on the regular command team is irrelevant, you will do _as _you are asked, _when _you are asked!" He glanced sideways at downwards at the two Earth machines. "Is that everything?"

"For now, I think," Prowl confirmed, and Starscream nodded. "We can call another briefing if anything comes up."

"Good good. All right." He lifted his voice, and gazed out across the foyer. "You're all dismissed. Let's try and make some headway today, shall we?"

Starscream was about to make his own way off to the testing room to check the aspirators were all in good order – they'd been in deep storage for so many vorns, he was willing to bet some had seized comepletely, inside – when a small voice from the front desk attracted his attention.

"Starscream? Uh, I need to speak to you?"

How odd, that sounded like Spotweld. He turned, to find the orange polymorph fidgeting in the foyer. "Something wrong, Spots?"

The giant shuffled his feet and wrang his hands, awkwardly. "It's Sepp," he said, flatly. "She's been attacked. She's been admitted to the district general for emergency surgery, and is on the critical care unit right now."

* * *

**A/N: **And… I'm not usually one to do this, but OMG Keaalu has made spoilers. I was doodling in front of the TV and this came out – but events don't happen until the next chapter. But eh, you can look if you want:

keaalu dot livejournal dot com slash 182606 dot html

Aww.


	23. Chapter 23

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Twenty-Three**

**Disclaimer: **As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. (...Except where they're obviously OCs, which Hasbro would be silly to want to claim.)

**A/N:** I apologise, we have another wordy one. Bah.

I dreamed someone turned this into a comic, last night, and it was awful, because it was all just lots and lots of talking heads and no action. :grrs:

Thank you all for your lovely reviews. :) I shall endeavour to keep up the pace. For once, I feel like I might actually get a story finished!

* * *

For a full few seconds, Starscream just _stared_. He felt like demanding Spotweld explain himself, but rapidly recognised that the polymorph didn't joke about things like that. "How bad is it?" he demanded, only just resisting the urge to jump on him for information. "Is it repairable? Will she be all right?" Without giving Spotweld the chance to answer, he changed his tactic. "Show me where she is, I want to see her." He shoved one of the aspirators into Thundercracker's startled hands, tucking the other hastily into his subspace. "Here, you take over with this, TC."

"Me?" Thundercracker tried to recoil but he already had the grip in his palm and had to take it or drop it. "What do you want me to do with _this_?! _I_ can't do-"

"You know how it works, and Winnower can run the _Vinculum_," Starscream gave him an encouraging pat on his wing. "You just test everyone coming back off shift, and then pick some at random. If they look suspicious, test them more often - if they think you're singling them out for a reason, they'll be more likely to crack. It's easy!"

"I don't know, Screamer – this is your thing…" Thundercracker offered the aspirator back, but Starscream declined to take it.

"You'll do fine," Starscream reassured, distractedly. "I'm going to have to go-"

"You don't _have_ to go-…" Thundercracker pointed out, petulantly.

"Yes, I _do_," Starscream huffed a beleaguered sigh from his vents. "Look, TC, this wasn't the act of a desperate addict trying to find resources to fund his lifestyle, because _no_ addict would have gone for someone _her_ size. This was deliberate. This was to send a message to us. A message to _me_." His voice had already descended to a poisonous hiss. "If they wanted my attention, by Primus they've got it."

0o0o0o0

Spotweld was easy enough to follow – his orange colouration stood out like a beacon against the dull streets. Starscream tracked him from the air, and touched lightly down next to him outside the District General's wide main entrance. After getting a location from him, he overtook Spotweld in the corridor, and left him trailing behind him on the central stairs – his wings spanned the entire flight, and at least half a dozen staff members of varying grades (including one registrar) had to leap hastily out of the way before they were sent sprawling.

That they'd had the _gall_ to attack her-… he was already simmering, even without having seen her. And not knowing what he'd _find_ was twisting his internals up in knots – he'd already gone through a dozen scenarios, and none were pleasant, envisioning his own condition when she scraped him up off the street and transposing it onto her. A heap of twisted, broken green armour, fluctuating in and out of stasis, barely retaining energon…

Her room was easy enough to find – there was a cluster of anxious visitors, all medics and probably her co-workers, spilling out into the corridor, and a small group of police officers. The low murmuring of a monitor could be heard under the chatter of nervous voices – the _hum_ was her spark frequency, strong and stable. At least _that_ was a good sign…

Forceps didn't _look _half as bad as Spotweld had implied – still in one piece, not leaking fluids from every joint space, not even _too_ badly dented. Judging by the flurry of navy paint transfers along her forearms and knuckles, she'd given a pretty good account of herself, as well – but there was an ugly, deep crush wound at the side of her neck, and she looked fairly immobile in spite of the lack of overt injury. Her optics were a dim glow, and she looked partially sedated, sleepy.

Pulsar was already by her bedside – that would explain why she'd been absent at the briefing, Spotweld must have caught her on his way into the station – she was sitting forlornly with one limp green hand clasped in both of hers, looking… guilty. Starscream didn't have to think too hard as to _why_. If the constable _was_ on Blue, and Blue loyalists had done this to her, it was guilt-by-association.

"Sepp?" Starscream brushed his way between the clustering medics, coming to a halt at the foot of the bunk. His wings were hiked up, and he had an angry glitter in his optics. "What in the _Pit _happened-…?"

The surgeon forced a wry smile, although it came out looking more like a drowsy wince. "I got on _somebody_'s bad side, obviously." Her voice was an unsteady buzz, plagued with static, and muffled with sedatives – the crush had presumably taken out her vocaliser, as well as causing this odd paralysis.

"Who did this?" He glanced around himself, as if they'd be present, and watched as a number of medics shied away from his probing glare.

"I didn't get a good look at the big one," she apologised, sleepily. "He arrived late, and was behind me most of the time he was there, but I guess he was about my size. Big engines. He did most of the damage. The smaller one – a dark blue delivery truck, I think – looked like he was there as a distraction until the big one arrived."

"Sounds like the two who did most of the damage when they attacked _me_," Starscream growled, softly.

_Fatigue and Deuce_, Pulsar added, silently. _Should have figured. _

"So they got away _again_," he hissed, grimly. "Dammit, they are _laughing_ at us!"

"Oh, I don't think they're _all _laughing," the surgeon reassured, drolly, and her optics glittered dangerously. "I took the little one apart well enough. He'll need a medic, pronto. May even have been admitted here, if you're lucky."

"Did you give the police a description?"

Forceps nodded, tiredly, and gestured with one hand to the sergeant that was trying to sneak closer without drawing too overt attention to himself.

"We've been through Accident and Emergency," the sergeant confirmed, softly, trying not to flinch under the Decepticon's glare. "Nobody matching the description had been admitted – but we figure, if Blue is as pervasive as we think it's got, they've probably got a medic or two on their 'payroll'. We've already set up monitoring on all the supply depots around the area, just in case anyone suspicious shows up, but…" He spread his hands, and sighed, tightly. "I think you know better than us that they're slippery."

"Only too well," Starscream agreed, darkly. "But they can't run forever. We _will_ find them, and when we do-…" He stabbed a finger at the air. Saying out loud and in front of all these Autobots how he intended to personally dismember the culprits seemed… imprudent. Theirs was still a pretty uneasy alliance at the best of times, after all, he didn't want them to have any convenient excuses to dissolve the agreement and arrest him.

"Can they fix this?" Pulsar asked, softly, breaking the difficult silence.

"It's a minor, _minor_ injury," Forceps confirmed, and laughed, painfully. "They took the tiniest nick out of my main motor trunk, just behind here." She raised her weak hand and touched her fingers to the ugly dent in the side of her neck. "But it's enough to disrupt pretty much every signal I send out – I've lost all my mobility on the right, and most of it on the left – and the corrective surgery is going to be pretty major. They have to remove and replace my entire motor trunk."

"That sounds really risky," Pulsar observed, softly. "Can't they just… repair the bit that's damaged?"

"Probably, but it'd be a short-term fix. If the connections wore out? I'd be back at square one, and probably in worse shape than I am now. Better get it sorted while we have the chance."

"But what if they try again? Wouldn't it be safer to wait until we've sorted the Blue problem out?"

"Safer? Probably – but I'm not going to be a whole lot of use to you all tucked away up here, now, am I?" Forceps made a face. "Besides, I'm thinking they won't try anything while my friend is here."

Starscream remained silent, but folded his arms across his chest to emphasise the powerful weaponry mounted on his shoulders.

The police sergeant took a step forwards. "Sir? We'll be heading back. I don't think we're going to be doing much good, here – the culprits are obviously gone, we can focus the investigation elsewhere," the sergeant explained, leaving his juniors to file away and head for the stairs. "Constable Pulsar? You probably ought to come along as well. It'd be inappropriate for me to speak on Sergeant Nightsun's behalf and give you any time off without his say-so."

Pulsar nodded, grimly, and got reluctantly back to her feet. "Spots is going to keep me posted, and I'll be back to see you once you're out of theatre," she promised Forceps, quietly. "We'll find them, Sepp, don't you worry about that."

"Just make sure you remember the curfew," Starscream added, as she got to the doorway.

"I beg pardon?" She paused, peeked back around the doorway.

"Curfew. Ah, of course, you missed the briefing, didn't you." He released a finger from his folded arms, and used it to underline the point. "Three orns, no-one goes _into _or _out_ _of_ the station without being tested for illicit substances." He watched for any changes to her demeanour, but she hid her dismay well. "If there's anything you want to admit to, sooner would probably be better."

She forced a smile, but it looked painful. "I'm fine. I'll remember. See you back at the station, sir."

"Hmm." Starscream narrowed his optics and watched her vanish.

"You think they'll have any luck finding them?" Forceps prompted.

"To be honest?" Starscream gazed down at his thrusters, for a moment, and shook his head. "No. If we haven't caught them yet, I think they'll manage to skirt through the net again this time. The only way we're going to catch them is to find out where all the Blue is coming from." He glanced up at her. "Did they say anything to you? Anything we could use?"

"The little one did a lot of meaningless taunting. Called me 'nurse'," Forceps growled, softly, and Starscream had to swallow an inappropriate smile. "He said it was a message," she recounted, tightly, then winced and shifted her shoulders, with difficulty. "Outsiders who poke their noses in get what's coming to them," she quoted. "This is from Blue, for fixing the scientist, who should have been allowed to die."

"They went after you because you helped Cali?" Starscream arched an optic ridge, curiously.

"You sound surprised. Had you had a different idea?"

He actually smiled, humbly. "I figured it was because you helped _me_," he admitted. "Cali wasn't badly hurt, after all."

"Maybe they consider _her_ to be the most important part of the chain," Forceps suggested, inclined her head and shifted one shoulder in an attempt at a shrug. "It's entirely possible that they didn't know _how_ badly hurt she was-"

"Primus, Sepp-!" an unexpected voice exclaimed, and Hardline staggered through the huddle of staff, almost sending Starscream flying in his urgency to get through. "What happened?" He snatched up her left hand, and felt his hopes wane at realising how _limp_ her powerful fingers were. "Sepp, what happened? Are you all right? Can you speak? Talk to me!"

She forced a grim smile. "Such a worrier," she reassured, giving his hand a watery squeeze of affection. "It's not so bad. It's all repairable."

"So why have they got you in here?" He sagged to his knees at the side of the bunk, and looked particularly pathetic and woebegone.

"Resector needs to do some surgery," she explained, gently. "It's going to be a little tricky, and I'll have some convalescing to do afterwards."

"Was that a hint of the not-so-subtle variety?"

"Interpret it whichever way you like."

"Much as I hate to interrupt… Speaking of the good surgeon, has anyone checked Resector's free of the Blue?" Starscream cut in, before they could get too engrossed in each other.

"I trust him," Forceps reassured. "He's an old friend."

"Still. I think he ought to be checked," Starscream argued. "The current climate being what it is, I don't think _anyone_ should be trusted unless they're proven clean."

She gave him a thoughtful look. "Is an elaboration out of the question?"

Realising he had Hardline's gaze on him as well, now, Starscream hastily edited what he was going to say. "There are those working at the station who we believe to be closer to Blue than they should be," he said, measuredly. "Some of whom would ordinarily be _eminently_ trustworthy."

"Anyone I know?" she wondered, softly.

"Mutual acquaintances, you could say."

She sank back against the protective surface, and groaned, softly. "_Idiots_."

"I used slightly less charitable terms. I just…" He sighed, irritably, and admitted, "have yet to actually prove anything. They may be too stupid to keep themselves away from the shinies, but they're proving very difficult to pin down and coax an admission from."

"I'm guessing you're not going to be forthcoming with names while I'm here," Hardline suggested, tiredly, and Starscream shook his head as confirmation. "Figured as much. Still. Would I be right in thinking I'd probably get lucky if I were to list a certain couple doing the rounds in the gossip chain, at the moment?"

Starscream spread his hands, and shrugged one shoulder. "Couldn't possibly comment."

"Thought as much."

"What do you plan on doing when Resector gets here, anyway?" Forceps wondered. "Even in the event he is using Blue, he's not the sort to come out and just _say_ so."

"Oh, I came prepared." Starscream brandished a fuel aspirator like a handgun. "If he _is _using illegal substances, he ought to be worried. I come armed and dangerous."

0o0o0o0

In Starscream's absence, fuel testing had taken a turn for the proactive. Thundercracker had come very swiftly to the conclusion that there was no way Skywarp would sit and let himself be caught, so he'd cooked up a plan with Prowl – although as plans went, it was as to-the-point as a boot-to-the-head, and hadn't really taken a lot of deep thinking. It involved lurking in corridors, jumping on the dark seeker as he went past, and one of them – probably Thundercracker, purely by merit of being heavier – sitting square on his back and not budging until the other had taken the sample. The element of surprise would (hopefully) mean he had less chance to flush with clean fuel and they may – _may_ – just get him.

They'd seen Skywarp return off patrol, and sprinted ahead of him to get into the ideal position to spring their trap. They lurked just behind the doorway of an empty office, where the corridor was wide enough to have just enough mobility to keep the upper hand, if they ended up having the scuffle they were anticipating.

"You ready?" Prowl asked, softly, fingers flexed around the aspirator, holding it up against his chest as though it were a weapon.

"So long as you are," Thundercracker confirmed. "You've got the harder part, because you can trust me on the idea that he's not gonna sit still. If you're not quick, he'll probably squirm about and manage to break the needle."

"What's to stop him teleporting?"

"Just-… You let me worry about that. Now _shush_, I can hear him coming this way-"

There was the low tramp of approaching footsteps, and unimpressed grumblings from the approaching teleport. Someone had upset him, but he was muttering just too quietly to be intelligible.

"Screamer will probably hate me for breaking everyone's trust, like this, but it's for your own good, Skywarp," Thundercracker hissed to himself, gathering himself for a lunge. The instant Skywarp had strode past, he sprang at him – brought him down with a flying rugby-tackle, arms around his legs, then leaped onto his back before Skywarp could gather enough of his wits to fight back.

Skywarp had gone shrill with outrage, but his muffled words were mostly unintelligible. Thundercracker kept his weight forwards on his shoulders, pinning him down with difficulty. "Come _on_, Autobot, got a stuck servo, or what?!" he exclaimed, frustratedly, as Prowl took his sweet time choosing the appropriate relay. Skywarp had got over his stunned immobility far too quickly, and had transitioned into a frenetic _bucking_, trying to throw his formerly-trusted wingmate off his back.

"You probably won't believe me when I say I'm not in the mood to hurt him _on purpose_," Prowl snapped back, managing to lance the needle into the joint just above Skywarp's shoulder, and winced at the _yipe!_ of pain as the tip skirted down along the side of a plate and punched inelegantly into the fuel-line underneath. "All right, all right, hold still!" The aspirator took far too long to hiss to capacity, and the needle almost jogged free twice, but eventually the vial was full, and Prowl lurched backwards out of the way before Thundercracker got back off the angry teleport.

The instant that Thundercracker shifted his weight carefully backwards, Skywarp lurched out from under him, and skittered away on all fours, jammed himself up against the wall, optics wide. "What the _Pit_ was all _that_ about?" he shrilled, and Thundercracker felt a pang of guilt at how open the fright in his wingmate's voice was. "What the slag are you playing at, TC?!"

"Sorry, Warp, I-… look, let me help you up-…" Thundercracker attempted to make amends, but knew it was probably too little, too late.

"Don't you touch me-!" Skywarp snatched his hand away, angrily. "If your _help_ is anything like the rest of the things you've been subjecting me too lately, I can do without it!"

"Uhh, what's going on…?" They glanced up to find Pulsar frozen just inside the small doorway leading back from the dormitories; she took in the scene with a single flicker of her optics and instantly began to back up again.

"Testing. Remember the curfew? You just got back off shift, am I right?" Prowl advanced, warily, as if approaching a wild animal, carefully screwing a new vial into the aspirator. "Now, are you going to play nicely, or do we have to do it the hard way?"

Pulsar backed off, uneasily. Skywarp had a stunned, infuriated look on his face, and was apparently trying to fight Thundercracker off, and she knew instinctually what must have happened.

"The offer will only stand," Prowl added, gently, still advancing, "for the next few astro-seconds. After that, we'll assume you've forfeited your right to do things 'peacefully'."

The wall was already at her back. Running would only confirm beyond doubt that she had something to hide. "I'll, ah-… I'll go quietly."

0o0o0o0

Like Forceps, Resector was a giant. _Unlike_ Forceps, who just wore the winged staff of the medical services, Resector also wore his Autobot insignia proudly on his barrel chest… and he'd looked thoroughly disgusted to arrive and find none other than the Decepticon Aerospace Commander on his ward, free to roam about, not under arrest. Once it became clear that throwing his considerable weight around wasn't going to get Starscream to budge, he backed down a little, and agreed (reluctantly) to allow him to stay – but his features remained set in a glare, and every time he glanced over in the Seeker's direction, his lip wrinkled as if there was an offensive vapour hanging under his nose.

It was taking every ounce of Starscream's self control not to just slug him one. "So when _exactly_ is surgery scheduled?" he chased, for the third time in as many breems.

Resector stared down his long nose at the smaller mech. "I'm quite sure that's none of _your_ business, Decepticon," he drawled. "Why do you want to know? Need to know how long you've got to finish the job?"

Starscream folded his arms and glared back, equally haughtily. "No, I need to know because I shall be accompanying you into theatre," he corrected, and was gratified to see a look of utter horror flash across the surgeon's features. "Just to ensure nothing… _untoward_… should happen."

"I'm sorry, that will be _quite_ impossible," Resector said, flatly. "This is already going to be delicate surgery, I can't have _people like_ _you_ getting in the way."

"Would you like to clarify exactly what you _mean_ by that?"

"I think you can probably guess by my tone of voice _exactly_ what I mean."

Hardline swapped a look with a dozy Forceps, and sighed. The staring match was showing absolutely no sign of coming to a conclusion – neither mech was prepared to lose face by looking away, and it looked like they were building towards exchanging blows. The officer revved his engines very slightly, as if clearing his throat, and both thankfully backed down and directed their attention towards him. "If it's not too big a thing to ask," he said, softly, "_I'd_ like him to go in with you, Resector."

"Have you completely taken leave of your senses, Chief Inspector?!" Resector was aghast. "A _Decepticon_?! And not just _any_ Decepticon, the second in command of the entire damn faction? In _my_ operating room?!"

"Decepticon, maybe – but I also looked at what he's wearing on his wings," Hardline corrected, softly. "He wears _his_ insignia, granted, but he wears our colours as well. Until this is resolved, we're together in this – one faction, one opinion, one mindset. And until he gives me a reason to change my mind?" The riot tank glanced at the jet and held his gaze for just a fraction of a second. "I trust him."

Resector looked like he was having difficulty processing the information. "But-… what in-... this is… ridiculous!" he spluttered, words spitting in staticky chips from his vocaliser. "I will be _operating_! On _delicate systems_! I can't be having Decepticons in there, getting in the way and quite possibly killing my staff-!"

"I haven't _killed anyone_ in a good several hundred orns, surgeon," Starscream ground out. "Please don't force me to change that, because I should like to remain un-arrested."

"Besides, you'll be in the way," Resector added.

"I'll stand to one side. You won't even know I'm there."

"…and you'll probably be dropping particulates everywhere!" Resector was almost pleading.

"So I'll take a bath. I _will_ be coming in, surgeon, you may as well make things easy for yourself."

"…eeeenh," Resector winced, and gave Hardline a look, but the chief inspector was absolutely no help. Finally, the big surgeon backed down. "Surgery won't be until the end of the orn, at the earliest," he explained, at last, gruffly. "I have to make sure we have the appropriate parts, and Sepp is, ah… not the commonest model around."

"_Thank you_, Resector," Starscream gave him a sickly smile that was clearly just to rile him up again. "Now, wasn't _that_ easy?"

"_Screamer? How close are you to being done, over there?_"

The unexpected voice in his consciousness made him jump. Thundercracker. _Oh Primus, I hope we don't have a problem back there-… _"What?" He directed his attention to his comm. "Does it matt-"

Thundercracker interrupted before he could even finish his sentence. "_You have to come back, _now. _We've got him!_"

For a moment, Starscream remained silent. "What?"

"_We got-… hang on, wait a second-… yeah, thanks, Winn! We got both of them!_"

"Both of _who_?"

"_They both tested positive,_" Thundercracker went on, not bothering to elaborate on who. "_We've got them in isolation. Boxer wants to call a meeting to decide what we're going to do with 'em. Coming back?_"

"Looks like my choice in the matter is sorely limited. All right, I'm on my way. Try not to let him raise the Pit before I get there."

0o0o0o0

Deuce was sat on his aft in the corner of the ruined old loading dock, licking his wounds and glowering. Impetuous as always, he'd lunged into the offensive without waiting for Fatigue to arrive, and had suffered the indignity of getting his aft _soundly_ handed to him – and by a _femme_ – until the tractor arrived with a big lump of metal and swung the odds back in their favour. A lucky wallop to the back of her neck had felled the giant before she could take the truck completely to pieces, and the two loyalists fled (although Fatigue did most of the fleeing, having to carry Deuce) to find a Blue-friendly medic to patch up some of the damage.

"Stupid… _nursebot_," Deuce hissed, angrily. He was back in one piece, but still fairly misshapen, and very sore. "Teach her a fragging _lesson_."

"Don't you fret yourself," Fatigue soothed, his voice a sweet mockery of concern. "The Boss has something planned, she'll get exactly what she deserves."

"Huh." Deuce sounded unimpressed. "Thought the Boss said that was just to keep that stupid flier out of the way while our little ally sabotages his equipment?"

"Oh it _is_, don't you worry about that. But it'll get that green monstrosity off our case as well…"

0o0o0o0

Skywarp was fed up, and jittery. Now it was all out in the open, it _was _something of a relief – no more sneaking about and lying to everyone – but that wasn't helping his withdrawal tremors. Or his claustrophobia. They might have him penned up in a room in the medical suite, divided into two down the middle with a clear polymer sheet and painted a soothing pale green and white instead of the dull raw metal, and with toughened glass across the end instead of energy bars, but it was still a sealed isolation bay and it still had a subspace lock he couldn't teleport _past_, so it might as well have been a cell. And it was small. Just big enough to move around easily in with his broad wingspan, but there was no window, and lots of tight walls. He paced tensely from end to end, trying to distract himself from the twitchy, irritable sensations of Blue deprivation. It felt like he had a dozen little fingers strumming incessantly along each individual sensory relay.

On the other side of the perspex that divided the room into two, Pulsar sat on her bunk with her legs crossed, and watched him as he strode endlessly up and down like a caged animal, his wings hiked up and trembling with frustration. She was keeping her own withdrawal tremors at bay purely by sitting _very hard _on every single motor cluster she had control over – it seemed to be working, for now, but the longer she went untreated she knew she'd end up a shaky wreck curled on the berth. That they'd be allowed to medicate seemed unlikely.

There was the whisper of air from the door at the end of the ward, and the low tramp of feet, and after a second or two Thundercracker appeared, grim-faced.

"Hey, TC. Bet Screamer's sore that _you_ got me before _he_ could," Skywarp joked, painfully, halting his pacing by the glass.

Thundercracker had a sombre expression in his dim optics. "Sorry, Warp. I guess I'm not in the laughing sort of mood, right now," he apologised, quietly.

"Figured." Skywarp's face fell, and he shifted, awkwardly. "So what happens now?"

"Honestly? I don't know. We're calling a briefing to discuss it." The blue Seeker wrapped his arms around his torso, as if to protect himself, and sighed, tensely. "You'll probably have to stay in here until the investigation is over. You're a risk, while you're like this."

"Hey, wait, wait. You can't take us off the investigation," Skywarp pleaded, flattening his palms against the glass that separated them. "You can't, and you can't leave me in here. I'll go crazy. Please, TC, can't you argue our case? You know me, you can tell them I'm not going to be trouble-…"

Thundercracker shifted awkwardly outside, and avoided meeting his gaze. "What do you expect me to be able to do?" he demanded, grimly. "Not going to be trouble? Look at you! You've spent _orns_ lying to us, sneaking about behind our backs, and you need a constant supply of that filth or you can't even stand upright!"

"But we've not done anything to jeopardise the investigation-"

Thundercracker interrupted with a snort of disbelief. "_You're on Blue_, Warp! How much greater jeopardy do you have to put the investigation in before you're willing to admit you're a weak link?"

"But-… TC, you have to believe me. We've been trying to gather information on them, trying to get close to the leadership… That's all. That's all!"

"And when you've been meeting up with them, to get information off them, just how much have you told them about _our_ investigation, Warp?" Thundercracker despaired.

"Nothing!" Skywarp insisted, helplessly. "I know I'm not Cybertron's greatest brain but I've not even said a whisper to them!"

"Well it's funny how they've stayed one step ahead of us."

"They've got a _spy_-"

"What, one that _isn't _you two?" Thundercracker cast a glare down at Pulsar, who was sitting quietly, holding her ankles, and watching the exchange. "Come on. Next thing you'll be telling me they've got _multiple_ operatives in the station!" His expression hardened. "If it's not _you_, it must be _her_ telling them all they want to know." He sighed, and turned away. "Look, I've got to go to this stupid briefing. I'll see you later. At least you won't let anything slip, while you're stuck in there."

"But I haven't told them anything. I haven't told them anything!" Skywarp pleaded, chasing his wingmate all the way along the wrong side of the glass until he came to a wall and couldn't chase him any further. "TC? _TC_! Aw, come on, come back. Come back!" The teleport made a sad little noise of frustration and let his forehead _clonk_ softly against the glass. "Please? TC?"

Several astro-seconds later, with the door remaining resolutely empty, Skywarp sagged back to his berth, finally defeated, and let his hands dangle uselessly in his lap. "If I find out you've said even so much as a single _word _to them-" He directed his attention onto Pulsar, sounding completely betrayed.

"I haven't told anyone anything," Pulsar confirmed, softly. "Just like you. Not a word. Like you said, they've got other operatives here-"

"They _say_. How do I know you're not in on their little game, and just keeping me busy? Trick the idiot Decepticon into playing along because he's too stupid to see the bigger picture, is that it?"

She wrinkled her nose, unimpressed. "How do _I_ know _you're_ not on their side? You _are_ the Decepticon. Maybe _they _made you a better deal than _we_ could."

"I wouldn't have been in this all, if not for you," he sniped. "You could have just _told someone_, you know, instead of dragging me into it as well."

"Well, so could _you_ have told someone! But oh no, we'll just muddle along and hope no-one notices." She pouted. "What was I supposed to do? They got me by trickery, I couldn't afford the product any other way, and they said they'd _kill _me if I didn't get you-"

"So flashing your curves is only good when it suits?" Skywarp cut back. "I saw you and that truck getting cosy last time we fetched supplies off them."

She hunched her shoulders. "That was different. You were there. I was alone, last time."

"What difference does _that_ make? Trying to make me jealous, or something?" he sneered, wrinkling his lip. "Trust me, it takes more than _that_ to get my thrusters hot."

"Why in Primus' name would I want to make you _jealous_? For your information, I felt vaguely safer, because you were there," she admitted, bitterly, then added, to save face; "as in, if anyone was going to get pummelled, it was more likely to be _you_."

"You scare pretty easily, don't you?"

"Easy? Huh. I don't know, maybe that's what being a Decepticon _does_ to a machine," she snapped. "Makes you big and so _idiot brave _that you never know an orn's fear in your life!"

He took a visible umbrage to that, wings hitching angrily.

"But oh, guess what, I'm just some skinny, stupid little Autobot, and I was _scared of them_, all right? I was more scared of _them_ than I was of _you_-"

He banged the flat of his palm on the glass between them, irritably. "_Hey_!"

She jumped, startled into silence.

"I don't want to hear how hard done by you are," he instructed, quietly, pointing a finger like a weapon. "I know how they got to you, and I know why you did it, because we've laboured the point enough times already. It doesn't make it any more _acceptable_. You're blaming _them _for a choice _you _made."

"It wasn't a _choice-_!"

"Look, the sooner you quit _whining_ about it, the sooner we might be able to think what the frag we're going to actually _do_," he interrupted, patience growing short. "Unless you want to stay locked away in here forever."

She shook her head, silently.

"Exactly. Me neither."

0o0o0o0

Thundercracker was last to arrive at the meeting – even Starscream had made it before him, all the way from the hospital, and he tapped at his wrist as his wing-mate slunk in, mimicking the way some humans tapped their watches to imply annoyance at lateness. Thundercracker just poked out his tongue, and got a smirk of amusement in reply; he tucked himself in between Prowl at the end closest to the door, and Inspector Celerity, the delicate hovercar sitting uneasily at Boxer's right, opposite Starscream.

"So." Boxer leaned forwards onto his folded arms, and subjected everyone to a brief, intense scrutiny. "We would seem to have developed a problem. I am open to anyone's suggestions on how to resolve it, short of just leaving the culprits locked up in the medical suite where they can't cause any problems."

Nightsun, present by merit of being Pulsar's direct superior, rattled his rotors, uneasily. "I don't want to be the one to put a dampener on things, before we even really get started," he said, softly, "but I'm not sure how many folk would feel safe, _knowing_ we have an addict in the active staff – and before anyone takes offence, I say this regardless of faction. Pulsar is just as capable of becoming a loose cannon as Skywarp."

"Is it really such a _terrible _idea to keep them locked up?" Celerity challenged. "If they were addicts off the streets, we'd leave them in cells. To be perfectly honest, I think they're _more_ deserving of time in isolation, as it's not just the Blue use, it's all the sneaking around and _lying to their superiors_ that went with it."

Thundercracker gave her a look. "So you're happy to keep them locked up until we square things up and sort it all out and can cure them? I don't know about you, but _I_ see that as a waste of resources, as well as unfair."

"Unfair? They did get themselves _into _this, as I recall!" Celerity folded her arms. "Seems to be an appropriate punishment for bad judgement. Besides, if we permit this one instance, we're saying it's all right for anyone to get embroiled in the same addiction, because they'll be let off with a quick slap on the wrist."

"Remember that we don't know that either of them was actually _willing_ in all this," Prowl observed, quietly. "Blue has been fairly cunning in getting what they want, so far. It's entirely possible they targeted them on purpose, and may even have forced them into taking it – which then begs the additional question, how exactly does fairness relate in all of this?" He spread his hands. "Anyone?"

"Wouldn't seem to be particularly kind if they didn't have any choice in it," Celerity agreed, reluctantly. "I just… fail to see a reason to want these two over anyone else. Superintendent Boxer, for instance. Someone in charge, someone who can divert the investigation elsewhere and take our attention off whatever their real plans are?"

"Boxer would be too visible, I'm thinking," Prowl suggested, and in the periphery of his vision saw Starscream nodding in agreement. "It would be too obvious something was up, if he suddenly took his eye off the ball. Two lower ranking officers can sneak about and engage in covert sabotage – if indeed that's what they _have_ been doing. Given that nothing obvious has been reported, aside from the earlier explosion, it makes me wonder if Blue doesn't have more sinister ulterior motives." He arched a wary brow. "We still don't know what they plan to do once they've spread the product around, after all. They may be aiming higher than just ill-gotten riches from selling their noxious wares."

There was a ripple of murmurs of agreement.

"Any thoughts?" Boxer glanced down at Starscream, who had remained silent until now, his features creased in a pinched little expression of concern and irritation.

"While I agree with Celerity that we should let the two idiots sit there and stew for a little longer, I also agree with Thundercracker, and think it's a waste of valuable resources. There's no reason why we shouldn't use their idiocy to our advantage," the air commander said, grimly. "Plus we'd be being complacent to think those two are the _only_ officers here with a problem. Yes, I accept it _could_ just be Warp trying to wriggle his way out of trouble, stating Blue has additional spies in the station, but I think even he understands he's too deep to get out on his own, for once, and that sort of course of action would be counterproductive."

"You almost sound like you're suggesting we let them out," Celerity pointed out, warily.

Boxer flashed the Seeker a look of alarm. "I can tell you right now that _that_ will not be happening without a good reason on _my _watch," he said, flatly.

Blue hands came up in a calming gesture. "That wasn't what I was trying to suggest," Starscream reassured. "At least, not yet. I'm just… willing to contemplate that it _might_ come down to using insiders to get closer to the ringleader."

Boxer gave him a hard look. "Regardless, unless I am given a very good reason to do so, they do not come out. Is that clear – to everyone?" He fixed Thundercracker on a pointed glare, and received a curt nod of agreement. "Good. All right." He pinched the bridge of his nose and vented exhaust in a terse sigh. "All right. I think we're done here. Testing will continue as it has done, I assume? Good. Step it up if you have to. I cannot stress how imperative it is that the other Blue agents – if there genuinely are more – are found. And if anyone complains, direct them to me." He gave them a nod. "Good luck to all of us. Dismissed. Oh, uh… Starscream? A moment of your time, if you would?" he called, tiredly, just before the flier could escape, and the red Seeker paused in the doorway, glanced back at him. "How close are you to a cure?"

"Do you want an honest answer?" Starscream replied, bluntly. "I'm not. This thing is clever. Very clever. It's almost as if it's been designed without curability in mind." He gave his head a tired shake. "I'm not beaten just yet, though. I'm not going to write Skywarp off as lost to us until I've gone down every possible avenue of attack. I need help, though – neither Cali nor myself are psychiatrists. I figured that since I have to go back to the hospital anyway, to oversee surgery, I could go and to try and get some input from Overhaul while I'm there."

"Well, I know sometimes you Decepticons need your heads looking at, but is _now_ really the time to be seeing the shrink?" Boxer wondered.

Thankfully, Starscream took the joke in the humour it was intended. "Always best to know ones' limitations, wouldn't you say?" he drawled, pointedly. "On a more serious note, I want his input into developing a resolution. They've tried curing the symptoms before, with no success. I need to know what they've tried, so I don't try the same thing – and not just because it'd be a waste of time, but because I am _not_ going to frag Warp's poor brain up any more than it already is by experimenting on him."

0o0o0o0

When Thundercracker arrived back in the monitoring room for the medical suite, the fireworks he'd left in the isolation bay had calmed. "What are they up to?" he wondered, suspiciously. "Gone very quiet."

"Yeah, they calmed down once they'd got over their little lover's tiff," Winnower replied, amiably, glancing briefly back at the screen. "All's been quiet the past few breems. I'm guessing they've run out of things to shout about."

"Hnh," Thundercracker made a face, and gave him a slap on the shoulder. "You need to work on your sense of humour, it's kinda morbid. How about I take over watch, from now?"

"Sounds good. All those hundred and one samples you took today won't process themselves." Winnower levered himself out of his chair, and stretched; connectors popped noisily in his hips. "Ugh. Once this is over, I'm going to get a full refit…"

Thundercracker planted his aft down on the stool, listening the the soft footfalls of the departing Winnower, and sat and half-watched the screen for a while, until he got uncomfortable. They were being too quiet – in a way, he felt he'd have preferred the yelling. The occasional soft murmurings were too quiet for the microphones to pick up properly. They'd drifted slightly closer together, on their respective sides of the glass; Pulsar was curled into a tight knot on her bunk, hugging her knees, and Skywarp was sat cross-legged on the floor of his cell, head bowed, fingers tight around his lower-leg. They were both presumably trying to keep the shakes at bay.

Thundercracker glanced sidelong at the untouched cube of energon he'd brought from the galley, and set it carefully out of sight on the shelf behind him. He suddenly didn't feel particularly hungry.


	24. Chapter 24

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Twenty-****Four**

**Disclaimer: **As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. (...Except where they're obviously OCs, which Hasbro would be silly to want to claim.)

**A/N:** I late! I sorry. :hideface: Been very busy at work, and it has eaten my brain. Plus, the "accidental pair" (they only decided to get together after I made one single comment in one chapter :P) have kinda run off with what remains of my synapses, so… I don't know, maybe I'll get something short written later on. Eeenieway. Yes.

Cmdrtekk – ahaha, that would be such a nifty solution. :D I think beyond the scope of my ability, though. ;) Besides, I couldn't work out how a mechanical entity would get reliant on a _chemical_ product, as they don't have synapses/receptors for chemicals to act on, so I went for a kinda "addiction in name only" deal – Blue is actually a viral program fragments. I am getting towards the end, though, so a cure will appear soon enough. ;)

Why oh whyyy do I have to always decide to give the bit-parts names, it takes forever to decide on something appropriate. :(

* * *

Forceps was half-awake when Starscream arrived from his brief meeting with Overhaul; she gave him a faint smile in greeting, then gestured to one side with a little jerk of her head and rolled her optics.

Hardline was dozing at Forceps' bedside, head resting against one hand, elbow propped against the shelf beside him, one foot tucked up against the frame around the outside of the berth, jaw slack, vocaliser buzzing very slightly. Starscream smirked at the unexpectedly twee image – looked like the big mech had probably been there the entire time since he himself had left, how _precious._ Like any good Decepticon, he filed the image away for future blackmail purposes, then woke Hardline with a prod in the side of the neck, and had to bite back a snicker as the tank startled back out of recharge so abruptly he almost fell off his perch.

"What's going on?" the chief inspector slurred, gaze flickering in search of his assailant and eventually winding up on a patch of predominantly red and white. "Oh. It's only you."

Starscream snorted, unimpressed. "There was a time that finding the Decepticon Air Commander standing over them would have elicited a little more than 'oh it's only you' from the average Autobot," he groused.

Hardline smiled, sleepily, and folded his arms over his chest, rearranged himself on his seat. "And we'll probably go back to it, some day, too. Just… let's get Blue sorted out, before we go back to war?"

Starscream tried to ignore the odd pang that went through him – it was a funny sensation that he wasn't entirely sure if he liked. Right now, he had command, he had a role he could get his teeth into, he had a (grudging) respect from the ones he commanded, and he wasn't even getting shot at on a regular basis. Right now, they weren't at war. And it made him feel… fidgety. As if he was just waiting for something to go wrong, and for it to all start over again.

There was a hesitant little _tap tap_ at the door, and all three looked up to find a small pale blue mech in the doorway.

"Well well, if it's not my favourite anaesthetist," Forceps commented, sleepily. "I suppose this means it's time for my nap, Latent?"

The spindly little machine nodded politely in silent greeting to Forceps' two visitors, then moved closer to his fallen colleague with a quantity of Virathesis suspended in some sort of clear fuel. "I'm afraid so, Sepp. I know how much you love it," he confirmed, quietly, carefully folding the weak fingers of her good hand around the container. "We'll get you under with something short acting, then get on the generator once you're out, so nothing to worry about. I'm sure you know the drill."

"Unfortunately," she agreed, dryly, and took her medicine without even needing to ask what it was.

"It'll take maybe half a breem to kick in," the small mech explained, directing his attention to the other two. "If one of you two gents would be so kind as to give us a call when she's offline? We'll come fetch her."

"Of course," Hardline agreed, amiably, drowning out Starscream's mutter of _do I really _look _like a nurse?_

"I have to say this is a funny sensation," Forceps observed, voice growing soft and indistinct. "I'm not usually the one _on_ the table." She directed her drowsy gaze at Starscream. "Am I right in thinking you're still planning on hanging around and getting in Resector's way, Scarlet?"

"I'm going to stay until you're out of the woods," the red Seeker confirmed, not bothering to correct her about his name. "They can do without me for a few cycles. Thundercracker is more than capable of operating the testing equipment."

Forceps patted his forearm. "You really don't have to bother with this," she assured him, quietly. "I'm sure there's more important things you've got that you'd rather be doing."

"I beg to disagree. They've got to you once already," he reminded. "What if anyone else on the theatre staff is on the Blue payroll as well? I'm not going to have time to check all of them before they get started."

"I trust them," she replied, increasingly drowsily as the anaesthetic kicked in.

"That's as maybe. I _usually _trust Warp, but while he's on Blue? Not a chance."

She gave him a look. "So it's a definite?"

Starscream nodded, reluctantly. "I'm not sure how long for, but he's definitely on it. Still got no idea how I'm going to get him cleaned up."

"The cure's still a way off?" Disappointment rolled off her in waves.

"Too far off. Overhaul's team have given me a databoard with all their research on it, but I don't know what help it'll be." He glanced down at his feet. "That's not important, right now. We can talk about it once you're fixed up, if you're that desperate to know-" He glanced sideways, and found Hardline trying to jostle his way forwards without making it too obvious he was doing so, and only succeeding in making it _more_ obvious. Starscream gave his optics an exaggerated roll and moved out of the way. "You know, you _could_ just say excuse me." He hung back – trying not to listen in too hard to the words exchanged.

Hardline let the Decepticon's scolding just brush off him, leaned closer to Forceps, and supported her head as she slowly succumbed to the anaesthetic. "I'm sorry I've been such an absent figure, all this time," he managed, faintly. "I'll make up for it, I promise-" He watched as her optics fluctuated, grew dimmer. "Listen, I'll be here when you wake up," he promised, softly. Her head had grown heavy against his palm. "You'll hardly even know you've been offline."

She gave a very soft, almost inaudible laugh – almost completely under. "Thank you, Hack," she murmured, brushing her fingers against his. "Just… next time, please don't leave it until I get smashed to pieces before you'll come and see me?"

"I promise," he agreed, touching their brows gently together, and watched as her optics finally went out and her fingers relaxed. He allowed himself a short, self-indulgent moment studying the face he used to know so well before lifting his head. "Er, doctor?" he called, quietly, as if scared to wake her. "I think she's under."

Latent appeared from nowhere, as silently as a ghost, making the chief inspector jump. "Good, good," he nodded, briefly twiddling at the monitors and satisfying himself she wouldn't accidentally wake up mid-operation, and settling a stasis mantle carefully around her neck just in case. "We'll get to work," he beckoned to the two technicians lurking in the doorway, "and she'll be back on her feet in no time."

" 'Hack'?" Starscream challenged, amusedly, keeping back out of the way while the technicians carefully negotiated the trolley through the wide doors into the corridor.

Hardline shifted and looked inappropriately embarrassed under the Decepticon's gaze. "Old, old nickname," he defended himself, refusing to meet the other mech's optics. "Even way back when we were both still in college, I never had the tidiest mode of operation. Why do you think I went for this alt-mode? _Nobody_ argues with a _tank_ if they're being a bit… choppy."

"I stayed with Forceps for orns, while she was fixing me up, and she never once mentioned your name," Starscream challenged, following the trolley down the hall towards the theatre. "So I ask you this now, and I would appreciate an honest answer. Is there any Blue involvement at all in this sudden interest you have in her?"

Hardline folded his arms, defensively, striding heavily along behind the much lighter flier. "We're, um… well, we've not seen much of each other in a very long time, but we met in college. Old friends."

"Such good friends that she never once even breathed your name?" Suspicion dripped from the Decepticon's words. "Funny how you're only getting back together now there's Blue to contend with. Sure you don't have any ulterior motives? Or do I have to test _you_ for illegal substances as well?"

Hardline's optics glittered with an almost murderous look. "All right, honesty. We didn't part on very good terms, if you must know. We'd been together all through college and were debating settling down when the war began and everything went to the smelter." He shifted, and sighed, awkwardly, glaring out from beneath hooded brows, irritable at having the past stirred up. "We had, ah… critical differences in opinion. I got this posting, joined a faction, but she wanted to stay neutral, and took up the position in the District General. Honour and duty and obligations got between us, and… well, we argued, quite a lot. About what was the right thing to do. I thought it was wrong for her to want to remain on the fence in a war, but she thought it was the duty of the public servants to help those who needed it, regardless of faction. We could never seem to come to an agreement on anything, and ended up parting ways shortly after that." He swallowed the admission that it had been after a particularly _violent _argument. There were some things Decepticons didn't need to be party to. "I'd not seen her in so long I'd forgotten exactly what she meant to me," he went on, gruffly, and rubbed the back of his neck. "Probably still wouldn't, if you hadn't dragged her into this mess."

"Oh, so it's _my_ fault you're acting like a pair of lovesick sparklings?" Starscream paused at the doors to the clean suite, his thrusters leaving black circles on the sticky mat at the entrance.

Hardline stopped outside, where there were seats. "_That_ is a gross exaggeration. And I don't know why I'm defending myself to _you_." He lifted his chin, belligerently, and matched the pale blue gaze with his own cobalt stare. "Satisfied?"

His optics had narrowed, but Starscream nodded, once. "For now," he confirmed, stepping backwards off the mat and into the 'overshoes' he'd been given – they were loose and awkward on his thrusters, so one of the nursing technicians carefully taped them into place. "Let me guess, you're going to wait out there."

Hardline debated denying all charges and arguing his case, but ultimately said nothing. He just offered a halfhearted scowl and planted his aft into one of the large chairs, by way of agreement.

"What's _he_ doing here?" a trembly voice asked, and Starscream glanced over to find one of the nurses – who looked sort of like a slimmed-down dark blue version of Forceps – trying to hide behind the anaesthetist.

"I will be coming in to watch you all behave yourselves," Starscream explained, his voice soft with just enough implied menace for his point to be clear. "Given that it's so hard to know who to _trust_, right now…"

"Resector…?" The nurse glanced pleadingly up at the surgeon, who was already masked and gloved and inspecting his operating equipment.

"It's all right, Succor," the surgeon reassured, and shot Starscream a dirty look. "I have the Chief Inspector's assurances that our Decepticon ally will be on his _best behaviour_."

Starscream forced a smile past his gritted teeth.

"Have you been through the scrub?" Resector challenged.

"Do I _need_ to?"

Resector stared haughtily down his nose at the smaller mech. "You tell _me_. When was the last time the particulate count on your exhausts was checked?"

"I'm quite sure that's none of _your_ business!"

"My point exactly. You must be putting out thousands of Grade One particles per astro-second." The surgeon wrinkled his nose in a sneer. "We'll have to try and find some filters to fit you, unless you want to come in wearing a full-length plastic sack."

"Given that I'm not going to be involved in the operation, what exactly is your obsession with absolute cleanliness?" Starscream huffed, putting his hands on his hips.

"You do understand the general principle behind the concept of a _clean room_, I assume? Hence, if I am going to have to have a Decepticon in my theatre," Resector said, his tones fairly dripping with an icy disgust, "it will be a _clean_ Decepticon, or it will not come in."

Starscream looked like he was struggling not to rise to the bait, features frozen in a grin of fury.

"The nurse will find you some appropriate HEPA filters for your exhausts," Resector instructed. "In the interim, the sonic scrub is over there." He pointed. "You will spend _at least_ half a breem in there, until your particulate count is under a hundred."

Starscream backed down with an irritable snarl. "If we ever have cause to meet again, _doctor_, once this is all over," he snapped, stomping his way over to the scrub, "I will make you rue the day you took that tone of voice with _me_."

"I don't care who you are, Decepticon." Resector grated the words out, spitefully flicking settings and ensuring the scrub was set to the highest and most uncomfortable level. "This is my theatre and I _will_ bar you from it, if I deem it appropriate to do so. Whether you happen to like my tone of voice or not is irrelevant."

"I swear," Starscream's muttering filtered out of the booth, deliberately just loud enough to be heard over the sonic agitator busily vibrating away any loose matter. "If that condescending surgeon wasn't absolutely necessary to this procedure, I'd have slugged him one _breems_ ago."

Resector looked unimpressed. "I hardly think a spindly little thing like _you_ is capable of putting much of a dent in _my_ armour."

"Oh-ho, please, doctor, don't leave the onus on _me_ to decide if the hypothesis needs testing!"

Resector huffed and elected not to argue it, watching the technicians bustle around and arrange the unconscious Forceps on the operating table. He wasn't particularly looking forward to operating on her in the first place, let alone with a Decepticon lurking at his shoulder and _pestering_-… hn. Wouldn't do to get himself too wound up over this. The Seeker was obviously at least _attempting_ to behave himself, if the police chief – the _Autobot_ police chief – was willing to vouch for him… unless he was blackmailing him, of course, which wasn't too far outside the realm of possibility.

He looked up at a funny _scrtch _noise to find Starscream already on the tacky mat to the main cleanroom, arms akimbo, two skinny nurses bustling around him and fitting filters. "_Excuse _me, but has anyone checked him?!" Resector pointed a semi-accusing finger.

"I did, and his count is under fifty," Vigil confirmed, glancing up from one of his precious monitors. "It's all right, sir, he won't be dropping dust in your theatre."

_Under fifty. Typical. Just __has__ to go one better. _Resector made a face and Starscream smirked back at him. "All right, so he's clean enough," the surgeon allowed, grumpily. "What about those?" He gestured towards the Seeker's arm-cannons.

Starscream forced a sickly-sweet little smile as one of the nurses carefully affixed the HEPA filters in place over his shoulder vents. "Oh, these are terribly easy to clean," he oiled. "I simply fire them once or twice. Would you like to volunteer yourself as a target? Wouldn't want to hit any _essential equipment_, after all."

Resector's optics glittered darkly, but he backed down without complaining.

Latent had been busy connecting up the bypass generator while everyone scrubbed in. The generator was an ugly black beast of a machine, covered in flexible rubber trunking and what looked suspiciously like superfluous ports and connectors, but it purred like a happy kitten under Latent's experienced hands, and obviously wasn't quite so fearsome as it looked. It would provide the power to keep Forceps' spark frequency stable for the duration of the operation while her spinal complex was out of action; that must be what that low harmonic was, just audible under the sweet hum of the generator.

"We have… green lights, across the board," the anaesthetist confirmed. "Spark frequency is strong and stable. All bypass connectors are patent. Stasis is established and deep." He looked up, and gave a nod. "We're good to go whenever you are, sir."

"Good, good." Resector checked his gloves were dry, wiggled his fingers. "If everyone is ready? Nurse, could you pass me that microscalpel…?"

Starscream stood neatly to one side, wings parallel to and almost flush with the wall, and watched as Resector lowered the laser-scalpel, and carefully began to cut his way down the junction just off the midline of Forceps' back. He wasn't entirely sure where this twitchy unease had come from – he was a Decepticon, after all! And one of the _elite_, to boot. This silly noble honour was the Autobot _modus operandi. _And yet-… Here he stood, watching with the same twitchy concern that he'd watch with if Resector was operating on Skywarp, or TC.

She'd saved his life, regardless of the ultimate risk to her own, even after working out who he (probably) was. It was only right that he should repay the favour. He consoled his twitchy Decepticon side that he was just ensuring he wasn't indebted to anyone, especially not a neutral, and especially not a _femme_-

"Nurse? Nurse Succor, what are you doing…?"

The mech's voice was distractingly loud in the quiet theatre. "Do you mind, Vigil?" Resector growled, not looking up. "This is delicate work, and I would prefer not to _snip_ anything I should not."

There was a hiss of something unintelligible and poisonous, and at that even Resector straightened; he gave Starscream a look that was devoid of his habitual sneer. "What did she say?" he asked no-one in particular.

Starscream spread his hands in a shrug, looking past the blue giant. Succor ignored his stare, moving single-mindedly towards Resector, her scrawny frame quivering with tension…

…And she held an irrigator in one hand, her fingers so tight around the handle the actuators in her hand whined and smoked.

"Vigil, you might want to take that off her," the Seeker commented, feeling a dozen anxious autonomous switches kick over. Energon flushed through underused circuits and a familiar warmth began to build in his arms. "And that was as in do it _now_."

"Yeah, I see what you mean… Succor? I think you ought to give me that, love-" Vigil stepped away from his monitor, lowering an anxious hand to take the irrigator from her.

She twisted like an eel and stabbed at him with the irrigator's needle, and with a cry of alarm he fell backwards over a power cable, the needle skirting down across his chest and leaving a thin, thin trail of fluid that smoked and etched a silver line immediately into his clean white paintwork.

"-Resector!" there came the yelp, and the giant was turning far too slowly as the spindly nurse leaped at him with the irrigator full of Primus-knew-what, and her arm was coming down hard, the needle descending for the vulnerable fuel-line just under the softer copolymer of his neck-

There was the briefest of images of her perched like a gargoyle against his chest, fingers tight on one of his antennae for support, her irrigator coming down in a stab of needless violence, mouth open in a scream of threat-

There was a flash and a streak of brilliant violet-white light bisected the room; it strafed so closely past Resector's audio that he could feel the crackle of power in it, and kicked square into Succor's chest. It was as if a physical blow had been delivered – she went somersaulting backwards, the irrigator flying from her fingers and skittering across the floor, and crashed onto an untended gurney beneath the secondary worklamp.

Resector turned in the direction the flash had come from, open-mouthed and for once stunned into complete silence, and watched as Starscream straightened out of his crouch and lowered his arms.

"Don't worry, she's only stunned. You can all thank me later," the red Seeker said, casually, and gestured with a hand. "You going to get on with the job now, or what?"

Resector just stared, for a further few astro-seconds, then gave himself a visible mental shake and – in testament to his skills – settled back down to work, shaky but recovering. "All right people, you heard him," he instructed, loudly enough to be heard over the twittering anxious voices. "Let's get on."

_At least he's arrogant and overbearing with good reason_, Starscream reassured himself, watching as Resector carefully pared away layers of armour and opened up Forceps' entire spinal complex. _He's a good surgeon, even if he is an intolerable Autobot._

Although it took a long time to get through, the rest of the surgery went smoothly. There had been a moment of anxious silence that pervaded the entire room as Resector gingerly lifted out the damaged cabling – it was a heavy, bristly, tapering cable, looking rather more like a dead silver-studded eel in the gloved hands – but all the monitors remained stable and green-lit. Starscream had got a good look at the damaged part as it lay to one side, while Resector carefully manoeuvred the new one into place; the injury was easy to see. A broken shard of green armour had sliced almost all the way across it, leaving a bristling fuzz of cables that looked almost organic in its complexity. There was no way _this_ could have been repaired by any conventional means.

Succor began to stir from her stunned torpor just as Resector was finishing closing up. She was drowsy for a long time, making pathetic little noises of pain from the residual null charge, and had just about roused herself enough to put up a weak and badly-co-ordinated fight by the time everything was over. Two of the technicians half-carried half-dragged her out of the suite.

The irrigator still lay where it had fallen, at one side of the room. Starscream gave it a little poke with the blunt end of a laser-scalpel, and was unsettled to find parts of it had begun to melt and corrode, the dull metal speckling up with whitish oxide, the polymer irrigation barrel turning into a soggy mess on the floor. Fumes rose from the clear fluid it had been filled with; he didn't have to sample it to know it was highly corrosive, probably an acidic reagent stolen from the hospital path-lab. Getting some of _that_ in his fuel lines would probably have messed Resector up for vorns, if it didn't outright kill him, and Starscream was fairly confident that Resector wouldn't have been the Blue-addled nurse's only target.

He emerged from the empty theatre to find the nurse in question had woken up properly and was thrashing about quite spiritedly in the grasp of two of the fleet of seemingly-ubiquitous little constables.

"But I have to finish this. _I have to finish this!_" She was almost sobbing, struggling to break her arms free. "They said I had to finish this! They'll kill me. _They'll kill me-!_"

But even the scrawny pair of grav-cycles had the size advantage over her. The two officers wrestled her away without a minimum of effort; she'd probably go down to the police department cell-block, where 'interested parties' could allow themselves the luxury of questioning/browbeating her later.

0o0o0o0

Up in the monitor room behind the medical suite, Thundercracker was still keeping to his silent vigil, and feeling increasingly twitchy, plagued by some most un-Decepticon-ly feelings.

He'd spent the last dozen breems trying to watch over Skywarp, but at the same time not to pay too much attention to the screen. Watching his poor wingmate gradually turn from caged warrior, pacing and irritable, into an uncoordinated heap of quivering plating on the floor had made him feel physically dreadful, as if in sympathy. Even looking at the skinny little femme who'd dragged Warp into this whole mess was making him feel bad – it was hard to stay angry at either of them when both were so obviously suffering. He felt halfway obliged to break his way in and force-feed half of Screamer's experimental supplies to them, just to get rid of a little of his own _guilt_. The sooner The Screaming One returned and took charge again, the better.

At least these two were still the only confirmed cases of Blue in the station. Winnower had worked long into some very unsociable hours checking the samples, until he got so sluggish and jerky that he was forced to go and recharge – he kept dropping the vials, and it was only a matter of time before he broke one. No-one else had tested positive yet, but the curfew was still in place and one or two had begun to look twitchy and suspicious. Thundercracker was half-heartedly trying to keep an eye on them, but his concerns for his wingmate meant his time was limited.

Which meant that the testing lab was untended for significant stretches of time. The door was locked, but that didn't stop determined saboteurs; a ghostly figure slipped into the gloomy laboratory, heading straight over to the _Vinculum_.

Blue light from the intruder's optics glanced very briefly off the _Vinculum_'s screen, then a dainty hand dropped a data wafer neatly down into the input port. The supercomputer scanned the wafer, obediently, and uploaded the rogue program into its own mainframe.

0o0o0o0

Starscream guessed it must be something to do with allowing components to de-stress and settle into place before she started to move around, but it had been several anxious breems (and the concern that he'd still somehow been tricked by Resector) before Forceps finally started to rouse herself.

"Have you been… hff… been there all this time?" a strained little voice asked, softly. The pathetic little sounds made a stark contrast to her usual deep thunder.

Starscream glanced back over his shoulder; muggy golden optics were straining to focus on him as their owner crawled her way out of stasis. "We both have, pretty much," he confirmed, jerking his head back and to one side, keeping his arms folded across his chest.

She switched her gaze sideways, then her features relaxed into a relieved smile and the slight stuttery pitch of her fans softened into a more melodic, deeper hum. "I was hoping you'd be here."

"I said I would be," Hardline reminded, gently.

She smiled, and leaned her head into the palm that cupped her cheek, folding his other hand into her own. "Well, you know how you've been letting things get in the way, all these vorns…"

"Something I plan on changing in future."

Starscream made a funny little noise of disgust. "Any time the pair of you are ready…" he growled, moving away and lounging back against the wall just out in the corridor. "I guess I'll wait out here."

"He saved your life, you know," Starscream heard Hardline murmur, very quietly. "There was a bit of a… eh, a ruction. In theatre. Resector was attacked." There was a pause, and then the amused little addition. "Primus, Sepp, you're going to have to stop associating with these Seekers, they're really making me look bad."

She clucked a tired laugh, and there was a moment of quiet before she spoke up again, more softly. "Although if not for them, we'd probably still be shouting at each other from a distance," she said, glumly. "We took far too long to get back to this point, Hack."

"I know, and I'm sorry. I guess I was… I mean, I-…" There was a pause and the soft hum of vents, sighing. "After all those vorns of arguments, of never seeing each other's point of view," he said, faintly. "I just… I forgot how you made me feel inside."

"I never forgot _you_," she admitted. "I used to wish I could turn the clock back."

"But-… you never said anything!" He sounded hurt. "I thought-… after we'd argued, and you never-… after that one time-… Primus, Sepp, I thought you still hated the very sight of me-"

"Come on, you've talked with Resector," she reminded him, traces of amusement flickering in her drowsy tones. "You _know _we surgeons are a very particular breed of machine. In particular, we have a very hard time taking a step back and admitting that, ah…" Her voice descended into something perhaps-apologetic, perhaps-humble. "Maybe just once we were wrong about something." Pause. "I didn't want to have all those feelings stirred back up if you were still too angry to talk to me."

"_Damn _we were both stupid, weren't we?" he groaned. "A whole lifetime spent at arm's reach because we didn't dare dip our toes back into the water."

"Hack, we were young-"

"No, we were _idiots_."

"We were _young_," she repeated, more firmly. "If we'd had the smallest smidge of maturity between us, we'd have known that shouting each other into submission was not the way sensible adults make other people see their point of view…"

Out in the corridor, Starscream grumbled something unintelligible and rumbled his vents. He'd stood and listened to them exchanging silly burbly nothings, but now his patience had run out altogether. "Chief Inspector?" He managed to find a civil tone of voice from somewhere.

Hardline glanced up. "Eh?"

"Must be serious, he used your rank," Forceps pointed out, sleepily.

Starscream forced a smile. "I wonder if I might have a word? That is… back at the station?"

Hardline glanced sideways down at Forceps. "Well, I was, uh-…"

"Go on," Forceps gave his hand a squeeze. "I can assimilate and reintegrate all these components just as easily while I'm in recharge, without the pair of you needing to stand guard. I think Resector might be a little more on-the-ball now he's realised this is serious, as well."

"But-"

"We've got plenty of time to catch up on old times later." There was that familiar old _no nonsense_ tone of voice. "_You_ have work to do, and _I_ have to get some proper down-time. Stasis is no good for defragmenting properly."

Hardline dithered for a moment or two, but eventually nodded. "The voice of sanity, as always," he sighed, with a smile. "All right. I probably did ought to go and actually _do_ the job they're paying me to do. But I'll be back, you hear?"

"You'd better." She waggled a finger, but was already settling down to engage dormancy protocols.

With a last glance back at her, Hardline gave himself a little shake and followed the increasingly impatient Seeker out into the corridor.

"I assume Boxer's been keeping you appraised of the situation, in your absence?" Starscream asked, as they headed down the broad stairs, glanced sideways and watched as the heavy head nodded, tiredly. "Well, I've been thinking how we could use it to our advantage. It could be suggested that the idiot pair we have in confinement may well be the key _we_ need to break this open. They have the appropriate connections, and with a little bit of work we might get the Blue loyalists to trust them enough to let slip some of their more important secrets."

Hardline gave him a look. "You're suggesting we keep them in the team, as active members of the investigation?" he wondered, dubiously. "I'm not sure Boxer'll like that."

"He won't – he's already said as much. Why do you think I wanted a word with you?"

"Oh, so I'm the soft touch, now, am I?" Hardline snorted.

"No, just easier to blackmail. _Hack_."

For a second, the tank just stared, openmouthed. Then he actually laughed, and gave the smaller mech a friendly slap on the back that almost sent him flying. "All right, all right. For now, you have my full audio attention – and the blackmail won't be necessary!" he agreed, drolly. "Although I have to warn you, I think I'll take Boxer's side. Having addicts in the active staff isn't going to be good for security _or_ morale."

"I don't see why it's such an outlandish idea. All we have to do is regulate their supplies, and make sure they don't run low, and they can still function perfectly normally. Plus, if they're getting supplies from _us_, they're going to be less susceptible to blackmail from whoever their current supplier is. So long as they don't go and let anything slip to the loyalists, they may stand a chance at getting close to the ringleader. I'm fairly confident he – or she – is going to be a local."

"You think you know who they are?" Hardline wondered, his tone of voice implying he'd like to be in on the secret.

Starscream inclined his head in a half-nod. "I have some… strong suspicions," he confirmed, darkly, but wouldn't be drawn any further. "I just have to say they better hope that _you_ find them before _I_ do," he promised, softly, stabbing a finger for emphasis. "Because I swear, if I find them first? They are going to _reap the_ _whirlwind_. _No-one_ plays games with _us_ and gets away with it."

The riot tank looked back, his expression hard. "To be honest, if I find them before you do? I'll probably stand to one side and let you get on with it."

0o0o0o0

In the isolation wing, the two addicts were a mess. Skywarp was hugging his knees, tucked as deeply into a corner as his wings would let him get – he looked like he was using the walls to keep his wings from vibrating – and Pulsar was a little knot of limbs all wound up in thermal blanket under her berth. Their shakes looked like they were almost completely crippling.

Starscream had taken one glance at the monitors and hustled Thundercracker straight down to the cold store to fetch some appropriate supplies to get rid of their withdrawal symptoms. He'd actually looked fairly aghast at the way he'd not been notified of how bad they'd got, which didn't help ease Thundercracker's guilt by even a smidgen.

Skywarp had his optics offlined and his chin tucked down onto his knees when Thundercracker finally arrived, clutching the precious cubes as though they were some sort of lifeline. "Warp? Hey, Warp, you still in there?" he called through the glass, hastily keying in the locking code, concerned that the teleport had suffered some sort of neurological collapse. "Come on, Warp, wake up!"

Thankfully, the accusing damson gaze flickered back to life as the entrance slid open. "Wh-what?" Skywarp growled, feebly.

"Here," Thundercracker scooted the cube across the floor towards him.

Skywarp's optics had a feverish look to them; he eyed the tantalising cube by his thrusters, warily, but made no move to pick it up. "Is this a tr- a trick?" he stuttered, faintly, lifting his head off his arms.

"No trick," Thundercracker promised, kneeling nearby. "I didn't even steal it, I got both the chief inspector and Screamer's permission. It's all legit. We need you lucid, and not vibrating yourself to bits."

"Don' want it," Skywarp sulked, looked away.

Thundercracker's spark sank. "Aw, come on, don't be stupid. Please, Warp, just have it-…?"

"N-no, thank you," Skywarp argued, stubbornly, tucking his chin down harder against his knees. "Dirty l-little addict will stay in his c-corner, thank you." He made a halfhearted sneery face. "I guess it's not as m-much fun saying 'I t-told you so' when the one you're haranguing won't play along and look s-suitably humble."

"Oh for crying out loud-" Thundercracker's shoulders had already slumped about as far as they'd go.

"B-besides," Skywarp interrupted, more softly, and his optics glittered in quiet humiliation. "I'll only sp-spill it."

"Was that a 'please help me' I just heard?" There was a flicker of hope in the blue Seeker's voice.

"Read what y-you like into it." Skywarp offlined his optics again, and contracted back into his ball.

"Well you could try and make it a bit easier for me, here," Thundercracker murmured, trying to get the cube to his wingmate's shaky lips without spilling it. "I already feel awful for putting you through this."

"Good. So you should, you dirty fr-fragger," Skywarp glared at him, but without heat, and he sipped obediently from the cube in his friend's hand. "Augh, yuck." He shuddered and made a disgusted face. "Seriously, TC-… ugh. Don't ever g-give into temptation. This stuff's _foul_."

It took a moment or two to kick in, but the transformation was obvious and visible. It was almost like watching a clockwork toy winding down – the shakes rapidly eased, then stopped altogether.

"Better?" Thundercracker prompted, warily, sitting back on his thrusters, watching as Skywarp slowly unfolded himself and leaned forwards from the wall, checking for any residual tremors.

"Better," Skywarp confirmed, sullenly. "But don't think I'm gonna say _thanks_, because you were the one who landed me in the smelt in the first place. I was quite capable of looking after myself without you _jumping _on me." He pouted, then averted his gaze at seeing how woebegone Thundercracker looked. "But-… well, uh-… thanks, anyway."

Thundercracker looked a little mollified at the half-apology, and nodded. "At least we don't have to keep navigating around the issue any more, right?"

"…right." Skywarp watched him get to his feet, and move away to the entrance to the bay, wondering what he was up to.

Thundercracker palmed the lock on the outside wall, and the dividing glass drew back out of the way, unifying the isolation bay back into a single room. "Better get Sparky back on her feet as well, I guess-"

"I probably ought to do it," Skywarp caught his wing-mate's wrist, and carefully prised the cube out of his fingers. "If you've not seen how Ruin treats a machine, well… you'll probably drop her." He made his hesitant way over to the blanket-covered bundle underneath the berth, and gave it a little prod. "Hey, Pulse. Wakey wakey. Got something to fix your brain for a while."

"You brought me a m-miracle?" One optic appeared briefly at the rim of the blanket.

"No miracle yet, but we did find some Ruin-"

Pulsar showed none of Skywarp's reticence; unfolded quickly enough to tear the blanket and snatched for the cube. "Oh _give me that now-_!" She'd gulped half of it before she'd even stopped moving. Regardless of where it had come from, however, the Ruin was as unkind on her systems as ever, left her spluttering as it went down the wrong intake, pumps making violent grinding noises, struggling not to immediately purge her tanks.

"Hey-… hey, steady, Pulse," an unexpectedly soft voice counselled, and two hands steadied her shoulders. "Don't rush it. They're not going to take it back away from you if you don't down the whole thing in one."

"Don't you tell me how to do this!" she spat back, but it was with an unsteady wheeze of her vents and another low, helpless retching sound of grinding pumps. "Get off-… knh off me." In spite of her words, she still sagged against him for support.

"All right, fair enough, you know best," Skywarp agreed, dryly, but kept his hold firm on the points of her shoulders while she scrabbled for the remainder of the cube. "I'll get off once you stop looking like you're gonna collapse on top of me if I don't prop you up."

She muttered something unintelligible and choked down the rest of the Ruin; it didn't feel like it was doing a lot for her deficit, but the shakes _were_ easing, slowly.

"Are you done?" he wondered, amusedly, when her fingers at last stopped feeling like she was trying to punch holes in his plates. "Stable again?"

He felt her nod, where her head rested against his shoulder. Her vents were still puffing hot, stressed air at him, but even that had begun to cool.

"Okay, Warp. I best leave you two in here, for now," Thundercracker had already backed out, and was keying in the sequence to close the door. "Screamer said he'd come down soon, once he'd got Boxer's okay on what to do with you."

"Great." Skywarp made a face. "Okay, Squeaky, here's some words of wisdom for you, before Starscream gets here."

"What?"

"Turn down the gain on your hearing."


	25. Chapter 25

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Twenty-Five**

**Disclaimer: **As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. (...Except where they're obviously OCs, which Hasbro would be silly to want to claim.)

**A/N:** OMG, shock coming. Or not! :lols:

* * *

In the isolation wing, Skywarp and Pulsar sat together on one of the bunks, swinging feet and trying not to fidget. They'd obviously been discussing something in a fair amount of depth, as their murmured words hung fading and distracted on the air when their visitors arrived, but they hastily went silent at seeing the superintendent standing at the front of the little party.

"All right, the pair of you. On your feet," Boxer boomed, sternly, and they leaped alarmedly to attention, coming to stand just behind the glass.

Skywarp half-smiled nervously at his commander, who he could see standing just behind the Superintendent's shoulder; Starscream's arms were folded across his cockpit, and he had that grim set to his jaw that usually indicated he'd been quarrelling pretty vehemently with someone. Being at loggerheads with the red Seeker was usually a painful experience on the audios. He remained silent and glaring, for now, though – gave no indication of how angry he might have been.

"Your commander has argued your case," Boxer explained, darkly. "Primus alone knows why he's bothering, I'd happily keep you pair of idiots locked away until this whole thing has blown over."

Skywarp all but flattened himself against the glass and did his best beaten-puppy expression, wings quivering. "So we can come back out? We're still on the case?"

"Until such a time as you foul the works up again, yes. But you will be shadowed every step of the way by an officer who has been proven clean, and your Blue usage-" Boxer visibly winced. "-will be strictly monitored. You two idiots have jeopardised the entire operation. Fact of the matter is, if we didn't need agents so close to the wire, we'd have kept you in there." He glared, darkly, and even Skywarp had enough good grace to cringe.

In the very periphery of his vision, Starscream could see Thundercracker had pressed a fist to his lips and was biting his knuckles in an effort not to snicker inappropriately. He was having the same problem himself – seeing Skywarp getting a thorough dressing-down by an _Autobot_ Police chief, _and_ having the manners to look guilty and not to backchat him in the process, was absurdly amusing. If only he wasn't quite so _thoroughly peeved..._

"In spite of your damnable idiocy, the two of you have the connections we need. You're in contact with the primary dealership, and you might be all that makes the difference between partial victory and complete success," Boxer went on, tiredly, and pinched the bridge of his nose, squinted his optics. "I can't believe it's come down to this, but we're getting desperate. You have to use this privileged position to get close to the Boss. And I don't mean his lackeys, I mean the ringleader, the designer, the instigator. Whoever it was that triggered this whole cascade of problems. If we can get him out of the equation, the rest should just collapse."

Skywarp sneaked hesitantly past the glass once Boxer had finally left, grumbling to Nightsun; Pulsar was a little more hesitant, as if not daring to believe they were actually being let out.

"That hurt my audios less than I thought it was going to-" Skywarp started, but his commander wasn't about to let Boxer have all the fun.

Starscream jabbed a blue finger so viciously towards Skywarp's face that he almost took out his optic, making the teleport leap backwards out of the way, startled. "If I find," the air commander snarled, "that _at any point _you've been your usual idiot self and done something that'll make me _regret_ speaking up for you… then I will _personally_ put you back in here. And you know what I mean when I say 'put'."

_You will be null-rayed and bodily dragged_, Skywarp intuited, and nodded, with a bared-teeth wincing grin of anxious dismay. "Gotcha."

"Same goes for you, Autobot." The blue finger swung about to prod sharply against Pulsar's upper arm. "Don't think that because you've got chummy with my wingmate that I won't put the boot in, if I think you need it."

"Yes, sir." She'd already backed into Skywarp's wings. "Absolutely!"

The red Seeker looked strangely miffed at the alacrity of the positive response – probably annoyed that he'd not been given more excuses to yell at them. He muttered something poisonous, span on one thrustered heel and stormed off. "Primus-damned fragging _idiots_…" A string of barely-audible mutterings followed him out of the room.

"I'm not going to say anything," Thundercracker lifted his hands to shoulder level, when Skywarp's optics met with his own. "Apart from steer well clear of him for a cycle or two. After everything he said he was personally going to do to the pair of you, I'm surprised you're both still standing." Pause. "Still as two separate machines."

"Meaning _what_, exactly?" Skywarp pouted, disgruntled.

"Well, I think the opinion was that since you seemed to be joined at the hip through all your sneaking about, maybe making it permanent for an orn or two would teach you a lesson…"

0o0o0o0o0

The main laboratory had been cleaned up and made operational again, when Pulsar peeked around the doorframe, although it hardly could be said to look tidy and efficient – all the workbenches had been stacked and pushed back into the walls, the analytical equipment was still in its boxes, and yards of cabling scrambled across the floor like oversized spaghetti dropped from a great height. Starscream was directing the team about, waving arms and referring to the near-indecipherable blueprint hastily scribbled in thick black marker on the cleanest of the walls, gradually adding more notes around the edges as he went on. Well, he _looked_ like he was in a better mood, but she didn't fancy testing his patience just yet, and ducked back out into the corridor before he noticed her and turned her into a large ornamental paperweight.

…Calibrator was conspicuous by her absence, which was more worrying. Primus forbid that the Decepticon had taken out his frustrations on her as she was nearest and smallest, while Pulsar was indisposed! The Policebot moved hastily along the corridor to the analyst's office, to find that it too was full of boxes (and a thankfully unharmed analyst) – the important difference being that things were getting put _into_ the boxes, here. A lot had apparently happened since her brief spell in isolation. "What's going on, Cali?"

"My contract has run to term." Calibrator smiled, sadly, continuing to pack her equipment away. "Boxer's had to tighten the purse strings a little, since I took the post, and, ah… well, put bluntly, the forensics lab can't afford to keep me here any longer, at the moment." She studied her fingers, briefly, and offered a humble little grin. "I guess this is his way of telling me I was asking for too much money!"

"They can't be _sacking_ you-?!"

"Nono, not in so many words. And I'm sure the job will go back out to tender, I just doubt they'll be able to pay me enough to cover my costs!" She wrinkled her nose, and pouted, half-heartedly amused. "I'm heading back to Codustral, to see what new directions we can take the company in. I've neglected things a bit, lately, while I've been busy here. I'm sure I have plenty of options waiting back home."

"But we need you here-!" Pulsar spread her arms over the top of the open crate, trying to physically stop Calibrator doing any more packing. "We need you to get to the bottom of this-…! Can't you hang around for free for a few more orns…? It'll all just go to the Pit in a crate without you-!"

"It pains me to admit it, but you _don't_ need me, any more," Calibrator smiled, glumly, navigating around her friend and setting the analytical plates into another box. "You have someone just as competent – someone's who's made a lot more headway than I ever did! And someone who's a whole lot cheaper to hire."

"So they _are_ paying him to be here?" Pulsar jerked her head slightly in the direction she'd just come from, referring to the Decepticon busily dismantling the laboratory mainframe.

"Well, a nominal amount, so far as I can tell. He said he's doing it more out of principle than out of a need to pay the bills." The analyst shrugged, ambivalently. "I guess he's annoyed that there's a group trying to usurp the Decepticon supremacy, and wants to teach them a lesson. I don't mind leaving him to take up the investigation. He has the mental capacity to make a good headway."

"Well, _I_ mind-!" Pulsar snapped, indignant on her friend's behalf. "He's untrustworthy, to start with. How do we know he's not got some hidden agenda, there?"

"My colleagues will keep an eye on him," Calibrator continued her packing. "I doubt he'll 'try anything' with so many eyes watching him… and you know, I trust him, in a way." She smiled, shyly. "I _was _halfway considering trying to headhunt him for Codustral. I could do with some more competent scientists!" she admitted, keeping her gaze downcast. "But then, I know he has more important things to do than work for little me. After this, I expect he'll go back to Megatron, or something."

That idle comment left an unexpected twinge in Pulsar's systems; _Starscream leaves, so do the other two_. She squashed it, irritably.

Calibrator must have noticed something in her face, because her expression became one of apology. "I'm sorry, Pulse; that was unthinking of me-"

"Don't apologise," the grav-cycle interrupted, waving her hands. "Just-… don't. It's not like it's a big deal if they leave again." _Except it is a big deal, and for zero good reason_. "We all expect it."

0o0o0o0o0

"You."

Starscream flicked the protective dark visor up out of his face and glanced up from soldering to find Pulsar stood next to him, arms folded across her chest, trying to look threatening in spite of the way she was clearly also trying not to lose her nerve and run. "What?" He sounded bored, dropped the mask back into place, and went back to his equipment.

"I hope you realise that Cali is _leaving_ today. Because of _you_."

"I hardly think that," he waved a hand, dismissively. "She's leaving because her contract expires. If she could tell a 'lowly Decepticon' like me, I'm sure she told _you_ as much."

"They could have _extended_ her contract if _you_ hadn't stuck your nosecone into things that aren't your business-!"

"Things became my business when Blue _made_ it my business," he corrected. "Trust me, I would not through choice have elected to work with squawky little femmes like those ones determined to bludgeon my audios into submission with their endless whining."

"Well this is a _police_ matter," Pulsar snapped, bristling at the insult. "I have a mind to escort you off the premises altogether!"

"But you won't, because I'm only doing what Cali was," he gave her a sort of _naughty, naughty!_ expression, waving the soldering torch. "Freelance work. You just don't like the fact I'm not all rainbows and energon-sweeties like your labcoated friend was."

"Well you'll forgive me for knowing _your kind_ too well," she snapped. "Because I know that if there's any trouble brewing, any at all, Decepticons don't just having a hand in it, they're running the show. I bet if I dug deep enough I'd find you linked all the way back to Blue-"

"How about I revoke my argument to your chief, hmm?" He smiled a gritted-teeth glare at her. "If you're going to get straight back on my case, I'll have you put back in confinement until we're done. And that's if you're lucky and I'm still in a good mood."

She swallowed the rest of her sentence. "You wouldn't…" She backed off.

"Ah, so you'd like to revoke your statement calling me a sparkless dictator?" His optics glittered dangerously. "Maybe you'd like to get out of my face before this 'accidentally slips'," he waved his heat lance, meaningfully, "and you find you only have one functional arm."

0o0o0o0o0

A breem later found Pulsar in a sullen mood, skulking in the abandoned corridors in the lowest levels of the station. She hadn't so much left the lab in a dignified manner as scrambled for safety while she still had the chance, and her wounded pride had convinced her to hide herself away until she'd nursed her bruised ego back to health. There was no way she was even going to attempt to face Skywarp while she was still smarting after that little run-in with his wingmate.

The corridors were peaceful, at least. Not many machines had cause to come down this way, apart from the analytical team, and they were all tied up in rebuilding the lab to the Decepticon's instructions. This stroppy hike around the ground floor was at least succeeding in working off her frustrations!

She paused at a junction-… and the sound of footsteps continued. That was odd. They were not the hesitant steps of one of the protoform techs coming down for equipment, either, but the solid flat stride of another police-bike. She focused on the sounds, turned her face in the direction they were coming from, and hesitantly set off in that direction…

The door to the lower basement stood open; _that _was opened so rarely that she could count the number of times she'd ever seen it open on one hand – although it wasn't so much that which caught her attention. No, what did _that _was seeing the familiar figure down the hallway, fiddling with one of the _Nexus_ at the head of the stairs to the basement. These big computers had been brought out of deep storage to be paired up with what Starscream already had in the lab – apparently he needed lots of memory capacity, in addition to the processing power of the _Vinculums_.

Her class were designed for action, not cerebral pursuits – they tended towards street smarts, not university smarts. (If she was honest, most of her class – herself included – probably weren't _that_ much brighter than Skywarp.) So seeing Whitesides doing… well, whatever it was he was doing with the _Vinculum…_ set off alarm bells in her brain.

"What are you doing, Whitesides?" she challenged, sternly, trying to carry off a little of Boxer's confidence in her manner.

He jumped so hard it was as if she'd jabbed him in the back with Starscream's welding lance. "Pulse? What are-… what are you-… how did…?"

"Whites?" She approached, warily – station regulations said he should be unarmed, but if he was sneaking about where he shouldn't be, there was nothing to say that was the _only_ thing he was doing that he shouldn't be. "What are you up to?"

"Nothing. Just-… er…" The other grav-cycle turned guiltily, data-wafer in one pale hand… half a cube of Prophet still clutched in the other. _Caught_.

For a moment or two, it felt like her vocaliser had frozen entirely. Then the invective spilled forth –outraged contempt so shrill she made her own audios hurt. "You-… Unicron-sparked, pit-spawn purge-worthless _fragger_! How _dare_ you make all those insinuations about _me_ when you're just as addled!"

Whitesides flustered for a moment, as if to excuse himself, but the femme was having none of it. She surprised even herself with her next move – twisted into a scissor kick so athletic it was almost a somersault, and planted her heel into his throat.

Whitesides gave a gargle of surprise as his head _snapped_ back, and something _cracked_ ominously. He windmilled his arms for a second, but had already passed his centre of gravity and involuntarily stepped backwards in an attempt to save himself… forgetting he stood at the top of the stairs. He gave a yelp and after a moment there was a long hideous clatter like spilled tin plates, and a final _crunch _of splintering old polymer as he came to rest in a heap of old packing crates at the bottom.

"You can consider yourself," Pulsar snapped, vaulting down the stairs after him, "_under arrest_."

Whitesides just groaned pathetically into his nest of crates, and let her snap the cuffs closed about his wrists.

0o0o0o0o0

"Whoa, Screamer, someone took your lab apart. Is Cali really that sore at losing her love- sorry, lab-mate?"

Starscream glanced up to find Skywarp in the doorway. "_I_ took my lab apart," he corrected, levelling his best _don't-be-stupid_ glare at him. "I'm trying to build something to get you off the Blue. Chemical antidotes are out of the question, so we're going to try program antidotes." He let his voice descend to a mutter. "Primus knows why I'm bothering. Ingrate."

"So…" Skywarp picked his way across the spider's nest of cabling to where Starscream was working. "This is it?"

"Yes."

Skywarp subjected the device to a few seconds of intense scrutiny before coming up with a succinct critical appraisal. "It's a box."

"Very good, Skywarp," Starscream praised, resisting the urge to roll his optics. "What's attached to it?"

Skywarp examined the six _Vinculums_ very briefly. "Okay, so it's a box with a fairly impressive computing power," he revised his opinion. "I still don't see how it's supposed to _help_."

"In order to safely remove the Blue fractal, we need to be able to isolate it without losing what makes you different to, say, TC," Starscream explained, daringly turning his back on his wingmate and crawling halfway under the control terminal. "Ergo, the supercomputers will provide a temporary 'psyche backup' so if the worst comes to the worst and the fractals redevelop and overwrite more of your basal protocols, we can put all your little faults and idiocies back in afterwards."

"So in idiot speak, it's gonna fix my brain?" Skywarp eyed his wingmate's derriere, considered planting a foot against it and giving him a helpful shove into his computer, but thought better of it. His desire to get off the Blue was greater than his desire to wind up his friend.

"I hope so, yes." Starscream re-emerged draped in cables, looking like the prey of a predatory vine; he brushed them off, irritably.

"Hurrah and hallelujah, I'm going to be a genius as well, at last!"

"I said _fix_, not _work miracles_," Starscream deadpanned, holding a clutch of tangled wires in one hand, and crooked a finger at him, gestured to the low stool. "Now come sit here."

"What? Why?" Skywarp backed off a step, eyeing the wires suspiciously.

"I need to see what sort of condition your brain is in, now come here."

"I don't like the look of that bundle of wire you're holding."

Starscream gave him a chilly look. "Just… get over here, Skywarp. Don't make me nullify you."

"Like to see you _try_," Skywarp sneered, but did reluctantly as told. "If you're not finished, what do you need me for _now_?"

Starscream set the loose 'hood' of wires down around his friend's head and shoulders, plugging loose ends into the ports on the lower rim of the back of his helm. "I need something for the program to practice on," he explained. "So I'm doing my preliminary reads now, while I wait for those damned slow technicians to get back with those _Nexus_."

"Practice?" Skywarp gave him a look. "If this means you're going to frag my brain up even more before you're even sorted with building your silly device, I'm gonna leave _now_."

"I'm not going to _change_ your brain at all, I just want a look at how the Blue is affecting it. Much as it pains me to admit it, _your_ brain is the best one to teach the engrams how to work," Starscream explained, reluctantly, tapping commands into one of the paired supercomputers to one side. "You're addicted, but to very low-grade materials, and you've got so many maps in your head there's not so much room for everything else."

"Are you implying I'm a good model for your horrible experiments because I have a little brain?" Skywarp growled.

"In a word?" Starscream half-smiled. "Yes."

"Charming," Skywarp folded his arms, huffily. "So what happens once this has finished looking at my little brain?"

"Well, it's copying it, actually-"

"It's doing _what_?!" Skywarp jerked his head back out from under the hood.

"What the-… put that back on!" Starscream scolded, waving an irritable hand. The _Vinculum_ had flashed up a dozen error messages, and he was going to have to set the program running again. "Now!"

Skywarp pouted, pathetically, clutching the hood between both hands. "But I don't want your computer to be sentient with my brain. I don't want to have an evil twin!"

"Primus, Skywarp, don't you think I'd pick a _better brain_ if I wanted my computer _sentient_?" Starscream despaired, throwing his hands up. "I want it to be _useful_, to start with!"

As Starscream had predicted, the pout turned into a very slightly vindictive glare, and Skywarp jammed the hood down hard over his helm. "_Fine_, then. See if _I_ care if I mess your precious computers up."

The teleport was silent for only a blissful few astro-seconds. He glanced up from under his mullet of tangling wires, trying to look nonchalant, but the guilt fairly dripped off him. "Listen, Screamer, uh-… I just wondered, um… your friend at the hospital? She gonna be okay?"

Starscream's frosty demeanour visibly melted, and his hitched wings relaxed a little. "Got a way to go," he replied, gruffly, "but she's in good hands. She'll be all right."

0o0o0o0o0

It was taking longer than Forceps had anticipated for all the new components to finally integrate properly. It had been so long since she'd had a replacement part installed that she'd forgotten how long it could take, and she'd ended up spending a good few cycles in a torpor – not quite in full stasis, but not really awake, either, reacting to the tiny commands from her diagnostics as her body recalibrated according to the slight differences in resistivity, dimension, fitting…

She finally roused herself out of recharge to find she had a surprise visitor; sitting with his back slumped, leaning elbows on knees, hands draping in his lap, studying his fingers, was Skywarp. "Good afternoon," she croaked, sleepily. "Didn't think I'd ever see _you_ here."

"Screamer's idea," Skywarp lied, glancing up at her then getting to his feet and pacing. "As I'd been a bit of a glitch, keep on hounding you."

The green surgeon was quiet for a moment or two. "I see," she confirmed, at last. "So… did you want something? Or was that all you wanted to tell me?"

"I, uh…" The teleport scratched the back of his head, and fidgeted, uncomfortably, making one or two cropped strides in each direction. "Listen, I just wanted to, uh-… you know. I formally retract my accusation."

For a moment she just stared, then laughed. "Apology accepted," she said, gently.

"Only because even a criminal mastermind wouldn't bludgeon herself silly, then send someone to try to kill her while on the operating table," he defended himself, sulkily, folding his arms.

"That's all right," she tried to keep her face serious. "I quite understand. And at least it was a logical accusation. I won't hold it against you."

"What?" He brightened, and plonked himself back down on the chair, straddling it and leaning against the backrest so he didn't have to worry about where his wings had to go. "You think so? Screamer told me I was just being an aft and ignored me."

"Well, you know that you have spies in the station," she explained, warily. "And – unless you're playing a very clever game and keeping accusation off yourself by being _too_ obvious about it – it makes sense to consider the unsavoury idea that it might be someone close."

"So what about your friend, Hardline?" Skywarp wondered, acting innocent but giving her a sly look.

_Damn_. Forceps winced, inwardly. The sneaky little flier had trapped her into a corner with her own words. "I don't believe he's responsible," she demurred, warily. "But equally I don't have any evidence to confirm it. We've been apart for a very long time, he could have changed in any number of ways since I knew him." She managed a faint smile. "Additionally – and you dare breathe a _word _of this to him, and _I _will dismantle you – he'd never be a criminal _master_mind."

"All right." A sneaky grin had already lit the pale features. "I promise on my honour to never tell him that his beloved bondmate just called him stupid."

"You _are_ quite the pain in the aft, aren't you?"

He placed a modest hand onto his cockpit, and inclined his head. "Well, I do try…"

0o0o0o0o0

"How long?"

Whitesides cut a particularly pathetic figure, sitting cross-legged on the floor of his cell. "Would you believe I've been on Prophet since before it even became a rumour on the streets?" he confessed, quietly, not looking up at his room-mate just the opposite side of the bars. "I was one of their first. I don't even have a good excuse for it." He forced a tortured smile, and shrugged. "It was one night, after we'd bust that energon trafficking ring open, made dozens of arrests? Remember we went down that club in the city centre, to celebrate?"

Pulsar remembered it – Whitesides had been somewhat stratospheric off high-grade, and making inappropriate advances on pretty much all the femmes he could find. She, Calibrator and Celerity had made their escape early and gone back to share gossip in the dorms.

"I was already over-energised when someone – I think it was Siphon – approached me with a new product, asked if I wanted to try it," Whitesides went on, quietly. "By the time I thought to ask if there was a catch, it was too late."

"But... everything you said. Mandatory testing, immediate arrests if found using… And you _hounded_ me about Skywarp! And all this time you were-"

"Well, it kept you lot off the scent, didn't it?" he interrupted, with a painful grin. "Who'd have thought that the biggest proponent of mandatory testing would be the one in it over his head?" He sighed, tiredly, and rubbed his optics. "Must have been nice to have someone powerful arguing your case for you when you got caught," he sniped, but there was no heat in his voice – just a tired resignation.

"Whites, you actively sabotaged the investigation!" Pulsar spread her hands, helplessly. "It's nothing to do with knowing Skywarp, it's the fact that neither of us actually did any damage!"

"Yeah, but I bet it still helps." He gave her a forlorn little smile. "Could I bribe you for a good reference, when this is all over? I'm fast, I'm diligent, I know the area well… I could make a good courier."

She stared at him for a minute. "…you want to just fetch and carry for the rest of your days?"

"No, not particularly, but let's face it," he studied his fingers, sadly. "I'm not going to be in the force for much longer, am I?"

Pulsar watched him, sadly. It'd be unfair to resign him to the scrapheap because of one mistake that had landed him in a mess. "If we got you clean?" she wondered, warily, releasing the bars so she could go in. The impeder around his ankle would pull him up short if he tried to leave the block, but he didn't look inclined to run now they'd caught him. "Once Starscream's built his cure? Is there any part of you that feels any loyalty to Blue?"

Whitesides was silent for several long moments. "I don't know," he admitted, glancing up, and his optics were dull with shame. "I want to say yes, but something holds me back, and I can't even define what that something is!"

"Even after everything they did to you?" She sat down next to him.

"I know. It's stupid, isn't it?" he laughed, painfully. "All through everything, they treated me pretty well, and kept everyone off my trail. It's… some sort of Blue-influenced misplaced loyalty, I guess." He studied the new scuff-marks on the backs of his fingers he'd acquired in his short trip down the stairs. "If I don't trust _myself_," he mused, slowly, rubbing the soft pad of his thumb over the scratches, "why should I ask everyone else to?"

"Whites, we've got _Decepticons_ working with us, and we trust them! Mostly, anyway. You've been a pure-sparked Autobot your entire working life, vorn after vorn of loyal, unflinching service… what's one little indiscretion?"

He gave her a lopsided grin. "Biased."

"Remind me why I'm bothering?" she groused, giving him a shove. "Look, maybe if I talk to Hardline… He and Starscream persuaded Boxer to let _us _out, maybe he can think of something... Is there anything you know that we could use? Do you know who the Boss is?" She gave him a pleading look. "If you _know_, Whites, we _need_ that information…"

He shook his head, glumly. "I did _try _to get close to them, but they only ever let me meet one of the three you already know. I think they _knew_ I'd use it against them."

"Was it you?" a loud voice interrupted from the corridor, and both startled, glancing up to find a very angry jet storming through the offline bars from the corridor.

Whitesides leaped out of the way, darting for the safety of the doorway, but not quickly enough. The larger mech was faster _and_ stronger, and had him trapped against the wall in the blink of an optic, one powerful arm pressed up under his chin, nullrays conveniently coming to rest _juuust _either side of his head.

"Was it you?" Starscream demanded, again, leaning his weight hard forwards.

Whitesides gargled helplessly and scrabbled at the arm in his throat, leaving a trail of paler blue marks from his frantic fingers. "….didn'-… _ach!… _didn'touch-…" he choked, vocaliser freezing and spitting out static until the Decepticon switched his hold to across the front of his chest. "Didn't do anything!" he gasped the words out.

"_Did you sabotage my results?!_" the incensed Decepticon howled, full volume, and gave him another _shove_. There was a low squealing _crak!_ as something inside the Policebot's chest sheared off.

It was like being trapped between rock ablators, the grinding shrieking voice and the terrible pressure across his torso; Whitesides cringed his face away from his assailant and ducked his head, optics offlined. "I didn't touch-" he wailed.

"_I didn't ask if you __touched__ it, I asked if you __sabotaged__ it!_" Starscream gave him another shove and there was another _snap_ noise. "_All _my data is _corrupted! Every last Primus-damn result _has been changed_!_ And I found one of _these_ in my _Vinculum_." He waved a data wafer in the Policebot's face with his free hand. "You know all about these, don't you, seeing as you had about a dozen when you were dragged in here!"

"I didn't do anything to your data-" Whitesides pleaded, shaking enough that he might as well have been withdrawing. "I swear, they asked me to but I didn't-"

"_A likely story_." Starscream's voice descended from its infuriated volume into a grating snarl of anger. "You're all excuses, Police, you worthless, Pit-spawned little excuse for sentience. I've _seen_ the contents of your datachits, I've matched them with rogue programs on my computers, and I've matched them with the program that's been influencing the testing results. So don't you _dare_ try and say you're innocent…"

"But I-"

"_Silence!_" Starscream clamped his fingers around the line of the cycle's jaw, jammed one nullray clean into his mouth. "If I ever, _ever_ find out you have touched _anything_ in my laboratory _ever_ again," he hissed, leaning so close into Whitesides' audios that he alone could hear the seething anger that simmered up off the maddened Seeker, "not even Boxer will be able to stop me tearing all your limbs off. Got that?"

The Policebot nodded frantically around the weapon, and thankfully Starscream sneered and stepped back. Whitesides sank into his corner, whimpering quietly, scorching air huffing from his vents.

"Get off me," Starscream snapped, shoving past Thundercracker and the two medics who'd just arrived, called down by a frightened Pulsar. A heat haze shimmered up from his shoulder vents, and his wings were vibrating with a high, angry hum. "Lying little piece of smelt should be glad I didn't kill him…" His words trailed in from the corridor, but eventually the sharp footsteps faded out.

Thundercracker looked back into the cell, and found the station medic blocking the doorway.

"He be okay?" Thundercracker wondered, gruffly, glancing over the small medical vehicle's shoulder at where Starscream's temporary punching bag sat and whimpered about his hurts to the nurse.

"There's just a couple of fractures. We'll get him fixed up easily enough," the station medic confirmed, quietly, and his blue optics glittered dangerously. "Just please, if your commander wants to throw his weight around, get him to throw it at someone who'll stand up to it a bit better? We've got enough work on our plates without having to patch up injuries inflicted by our _allies_."

"Can you blame him for being angry?" Thundercracker challenged. "There's orns- no, _dozens _of orns of work that we can't use any more. And if it wasn't _him_…" He pointed at the shaky Whitesides, who flinched involuntarily from the gesture. "Then it was someone else in the station. And we have no way of getting to the bottom of _who_, right now…"

0o0o0o0o0

Skywarp was sat at a computer in the main lounge, when Pulsar finally tracked him down. He had one of Fatigue's communications wafers in his fingers, and was studying it, puzzledly.

"What's wrong?" she wondered, only just resisting the urge to lambaste him for his commander's violence.

"Oh, hey, Pulse," he greeted, distractedly. "Message from Fatigue. It's a weird one – no passwords or anything on it! Just a location and a time, and a message. They say they want us in half a cycle, because there's some news they need to give us." He glanced up. "Think they know we're busted?"

"Must do," she agreed, glumly. "They know everything else that goes on, here…" She took the wafer from his fingers, delicately, and turned it over. "Look, it's got a logo on it as well," she pointed out. "They're usually blank, right?"

Skywarp nodded. "It's where they want us to meet them," he confirmed, gesturing to the computer terminal, which was online on a search engine image result page. The same logo was splashed across a variety of results on the screen. "Here, see?"

Pulsar frowned. "But that's a Codustral depot…"

0o0o0o0o0

Calibrator didn't like these dark streets. She'd packed all her equipment back home in a delivery truck, but there'd not been room for her on board, so she was walking it. It wasn't too far – a few blocks, that was all – but she was only a small robot, small and lightweight and unarmed, relying on her dark colouration and hugging the walls to remain fairly hidden. So far, she'd been lucky – no-one had ever approached her, and since most attacks were on individuals who looked like they had a few credits to their name, she'd got the knack of looking like a small, inoffensive, valueless Empty. No-one would have suspected that the poor, penniless little Pit-scraping was in fact the managing director of Codustral, the largest chemical company in this district.

She turned a corner into her home district, and passed by another of the darkened alleyways-

An arm shot out of nowhere and clamped over her mouth, and then jerked her out of sight into darkness before she could make even the slightest squeak of alarm.

0o0o0o0o0

The Boss had arrived back in good time, safe and sound; Siphon was relieved to be able to pass over his mantle of duty, at last. He didn't like having to be in charge in the Boss' absence, he was more of a follower than a leader.

"Everything is going to plan," the tanker confirmed, bowing steeply, as Fatigue took his leave. "Production is up. Supplies are running well. And we have more, eh… 'suppliers'… signing up to carry it into the mass market."

"Good, good," the Boss nodded, distractedly. "What about the sensor blind?"

"Production of the basic elements was completed yesterday. The forcefield's already working perfectly with the blind, Fatigue was overseeing the final integration into the main grid today, until he came to fetch you. It should all be up and running within the orn."

The Boss harrumphed, grumpily. "Speaking of whom, I shall have to remind him to be a little more discreet. 'Abducting' police scientists in full view of Autobot police officers is not the way to get their attention elsewhere. Is that everything?"

"Oh, no – that dopey jet and his girl are here again, right on time." He led the way down the corridor. "They said they wanted to see you before we got down to the business of giving them the news, and making the drop."

"Hm, I can imagine why. They're playing games." The Boss made a disgusted noise. "We need to hit them a smidgen harder, remind them where their allegiances lay."

"You mean we're going to get the chance to break out the _really _good stuff…?"

A chuckle greeted the comment. "Yes. They're going to be the first to take Crisis into the market."

Siphon clucked, amusedly. "You think they'll be all right with it? It's killed everyone so far."

"So we go _gently_, and we keep Deuce as far away as possible. Ruin has never had the calming effect of Prophet, I don't want him 'helping' and overdosing them. This batch has been perfected, and I have utmost confidence in its efficacy, but only provided we titrate it appropriately."

"Well, I guess if we kill one of 'em at least we have a spare, right?" Siphon smirked. "Unless they're so terribly sparkbound, one'll pine away without the other."

"I'm not sure who would be more upset at the insinuation they are somehow a pair."

"No offence, Boss, but you don't pay me enough to worry about the feelings of our 'customers'," Siphon snorted. "Anyways. We left 'em here to wait for you to arrive."

The Boss smiled; the experiment was proving to have strange results. Nothing that had been _desired_, but some unusual successes regardless. The strange pair were sitting together in an old supply room, among the boxes, chattering inanely and looking so completely… at peace with the world. At peace with each other. Deadly enemies, warring factions, sitting so close together they were physically touching, smiling and discussing some irrelevant subject in hushed, serious voices.

If Blue could induce enemies to work and to cohabit _happily _together, then perhaps it _was_ what was needed to induce the warring factions to forget their prior arguments and animosity, and work together for Codustral.

Siphon stuck his head around the doorway, and spoiled the image. "Hey, lovers. Boss is here to see you!"

There were half-hearted annoyed noises at their description, but Siphon thumbed his nose and waggled his fingers at them.

"Thank you, Siphon. I can take things from here. If you would be so kind as to fetch the Crisis, we can get to work," the Boss instructed, quietly, and stepped to one side as the tanker bowed steeply and scuttled away.

…then pushed the door open, and stepped through-

"You!" Skywarp was on his feet in a flash, startled, weapons whining softly.

"What in Primus name-?!" Pulsar leaped backwards and fell square over the box she'd previously been sitting on, landing hard on her aft among packing crates. "But this is-… it can't-!"

0o0o0o0o0

"So. Now her contract's run to term, where has she gone?" Starscream wondered, out loud, standing in the galley with a mug of energon held lightly in one hand. "If I wanted to get back in contact, for instance, and ask if she had a backup for all the work we've lost…?"

"Back to Codustral, I guess," Hardline replied, thoughtfully, resting forwards on his elbows. "She's been the owner and managing director since the company formed, vorns ago. I'm sure she has plenty of taps into plenty of schemes."

"And-…" Starscream paused, and backtracked. "What? Who did you say?" Very quiet bells were ringing in some distant part of his mind. "Co-dustral? What the Pit kind of name is that? Got to be shorthand for something."

"Hm, yes, I think it is… it's short for 'Something Industrial', I think," Hardline mused. "Was it Collaborative? Coaxial? They've not used their original name in aeons. Nightsun?"

The helicopter was already at the computer, prompting it for an answer. "Cobalt," he replied, glancing up. "They changed their trading name to Codustral twenty-four vorns ago."

"Codustral is _Cobalt_ Industrial?" Starscream groaned out loud and covered his optics. "Oh for the love of-… did nobody think to check that out right at the start?!"

"What's the big deal?" Hardline asked, sharing a glance with Nightsun, who shrugged. "We checked her out twice, didn't find anything."

"I bet you _warned _her you were going, though. Let me spell it out for you." The red Seeker pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed his optics with one hand, irritably. "What is cobalt?"

"A metallic element."

"Right, but more than that. What's it a synonym for?"

"It's a colour, right? Cobalt is-… aw, _slag_." Hardline's shoulders slumped. "Cobalt is blue."

"Exactly. Cobalt is blue. Codustral is Cobalt Industrial. Cobalt Industrial equals Blue Manufacturing!" Starscream gave a snarl of wordless anger and hurled the mug to the floor, furiously, and there was an echoing crash as a startled sleepy officer in the background dropped his own energon. "No wonder we couldn't find the ringleader. They were perfectly hidden, right in plain sight – she was here, working 'with' us, the whole time!"

* * *

(**A/N:** Liek, OMG, shock shock etc.

…All right, you can all get to telling me I made it too obvious, now. :)

I think I need to art more for this. :nods to self:)


	26. Chapter 26

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Twenty-Six**

**Disclaimer: **As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. (...Except where they're obviously OCs, which Hasbro would be silly to want to claim.)

**A/N:** I had most of this written a couple of days ago, then… came down with the sick again. Huurgh. Spent most of today in bed. One of the perils of working in a hospital? …okay, I'll shush and get to the story.

Next update may be a wee while longer than normal coming, I'm going to my parents for the weekend (birthday, yay!) and won't have access to my files.

Hope you weren't all too disappointed to find out who the ringleader was... ;)

* * *

It took Skywarp and Pulsar several long seconds to get over their shock.

"Cali-! But how can you-… how can it be _you_?" Pulsar lurched across her words. It seemed incomprehensible. One of her closest friends and confidants at the station was orchestrating this whole thing? And she hadn't even _suspected-_…? It was difficult to tell if she felt more _disappointed _at the revelation, or _ashamed_ that she'd been so totally clueless.

Skywarp showed none of Pulsar's vocal reticence. He literally _flew _at Calibrator, snarling, arms outstretched and fingers curling into claws… but Fatigue stepped forwards and intercepted him before he could reach her, stuck out a casual arm just in time to catch him hard across the chest and knock him to his back on the floor with a low _crunch_. Skywarp lay flat on his wings and _oww!_-ed breathlessly for a moment or two, fans frantically gusting cool air over the wrenched components, then glared up at the smirking Fatigue and went for the tractor's ankles… Fatigue kicked out, lazily, caught him under the chin with a blow hard enough to leave scuffs of olive paint up his throat and landed him straight back on the floor, cracking the abused glass of his cockpit.

"Play nice, Seeker," he instructed, amusedly, delivering a needless kick into the flier's side.

Skywarp groaned, angrily, and clawed his fingers at the floor. "…so going to get you for that-"

"Okay, do I need to remind you where you are, again, and who I am? And why it's not a good idea to go threatening the residents?" Fatigue wondered, leaning closer. "I'm going easy on you because Cali doesn't want you too smashed up, but if I have to give you a walloping to make the point-…?"

Skywarp growled and kicked out sideways, sweeping Fatigue's feet out from under him. The tractor gave a startled yelp and landed hard on his aft, in which time the teleport was back up on his thrusters and aiming a kick at his face-

Fatigue managed to throw himself backwards just in time, caught the flier's heel as it passed his temple, and shoved upwards. Skywarp gave an _erp!_ and lost his balance, toppling backwards. "You're starting to frag me off, Airhead," Fatigue growled, dropping a piledriver fist towards the dazed crimson optics-

Pulsar slipped herself between them, and the descending fist came to a gentle stop hovering just above her head.

"What do _you _want, Skinny?" the tractor rumbled. "Is Deuce no fun today, or something?"

"Leave him alone," she said, quietly.

Fatigue's heavy features broke into an amused leer. "Aw, how cute. Has to have his girl protect him," he sneered, patting Pulsar on the head, then dropped his hand to her shoulder and used her to push himself to his feet. (Although it didn't seem to be accidental that the sudden weight increase completely overwhelmed the servos in her hips and dropped her square down onto Skywarp's wings, prompting a _yelp!_ and an angry shove in the opposite direction.)

"I hardly think _that_," she corrected, irritably, scooting herself across the floor, away from the angry wings that jerked meaningfully under her weight. "He's my ride home. Smash him up, and I'll have to walk."

"Huh," Fatigue snorted, in a tone of voice that suggested he didn't believe her the slightest bit, but he wasn't going to push it. "All right, Sweets, we'll leave him be for now. Just you make sure you mind your manners in future. Acting cute won't always save you from a kick in the aft, if you've earned it."

She averted her gaze and pouted, irritable, offered her hand to the prone Seeker.

Skywarp took the proffered hand and let her drag him – with no small amount of difficulty – back upright. "If you have to try and be _heroic_, can you try and do it in such a way that it doesn't make _me_ look bad?" he grumbled, quietly, his vocaliser still buzzing very slightly where Fatigue's kick had wrenched it out of alignment. "I was quite capable of kicking his aft on my own."

"Yeah, you're welcome." She glared back at him.

Calibrator had remained perched on her crate in the doorway, smiling her silent amusement at the little ruction. "Are you two quite finished?" she wondered, sweetly. "And can we get back to business?"

"I have zero desire for any form of business with _you_," Skywarp said, and glared at her. "And I hope you realise there's absolutely _nothing_ you can say that'll make me keep this a secret," he added, folding his arms across his cockpit. "Nothing at all! And I don't care _how_ dosed up on Blue you get me, I'm still going to tell everyone."

Calibrator actually _laughed_. "I hope _you_ realise that I had planned for that eventuality all along," she confirmed, and smiled at the downcast expression he didn't quite succeed in hiding. "In fact, I am quite convinced that your commander will have worked it all out already. He's a lot more _astute_ than Autobot propaganda implies, isn't he?"

"Well I'm still gonna tell him," Skywarp grumbled, but seemed mostly petulant that she hadn't pleaded with him to keep her secret. "I don't get why you invited him to _join_ you, if you're so sure he's worked out you're the Boss. Surely even _you _can guess where he'd tell you to stick it once he found out."

"To get him out of the way, my dear moron," Calibrator scolded. "Had he ultimately elected to accompany me, for whatever reason – to work with me, to challenge me, to try and remove me, whatever – Fatigue could have very easily dealt with him."

In the background, the tractor popped the actuators in his knuckles, meaningfully. "We've got plenty of cement here, after all," he rumbled, amusedly, harking back to an earlier conversation he'd had with Skywarp.

The teleport shot him a dirty look, but managed to keep a rein on his vocaliser for once.

"While he remains at the station, he is a risk. But no matter!" Calibrator waved a hand, dismissively. "I shall just have to make sure my alternative steps to neutralise him are more successful."

"What do you mean, your alternative steps…?" Skywarp gave her a probing look. "He said someone sabotaged his computers, but that's hardly gonna 'neutralise' him. What else have you done?"

"My my, you're being quite shrewd as well, today, aren't you?" Calibrator smiled, warningly. "What I have done is not something you need to be party to just yet, little Skywarp. You will find out in due course."

"Bet it's something stupid," he sniped, disgruntled, sitting heavily back down on one of the boxes and looking irritably off to one side. "Let's face it, you blew up your own lab! While you were still _in_ it! Can't get much more _stupid_ than that."

"_That _was a foolish oversight," she snapped, letting the smile drop and her carefully-crafted sweet and inoffensive mask slip for just a second. "The fume cupboard was supposed to act like a concentrator, build the fumes up to lethal levels and kill everyone caught in the blast front, while the workscreen disturbed the shockfront and sheltered me from it for long enough to get out of the room. Of course, your wing commander figured out my error after the fact, when it was too late for me to counter it. The damn cupboard _contained_ the blast. If only I'd left the stuff out on the bench and abandoned ship…" She gave herself a shake and cut herself off, mid-tirade. "No matter. What's past is past, and I don't plan on making the same mistake twice. I left plenty of distractions in the walls to keep everyone busy for a little while…"

"Want to explain exactly what you mean by that?"

"No." She smiled, disdainfully. "Just that you will want to follow my instructions to the letter, when I let you go back-"

"What about Sepp?" Pulsar asked, softly. "Why did you send your underlings after _her_?"

"The surgeon? Just an unfortunate casualty of the 'war'." The analyst shrugged, loosely. "She was not a bad sort, either; I quite liked her. But she repaired your wingmate, and that meant she needed taking out of the equation – should Starscream happen to suffer any further 'unfortunate accidents', I should prefer it if he was not immediately back on his feet." She made a face. "That is not to mention she required a much-needed lesson in why she should not stick her nose into other people's business."

"I don't think she got involved through any particular _choice_ in the matter," the Policebot commented, quietly. "She just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Something she will ensure she does not do again, one presumes," Calibrator observed, amusedly. "Ah, Siphon. Just in time. Things were getting a little… deep."

The tanker had returned with a handful of cubes, on a tray. He bent into a steep, mocking bow, and offered the cubes towards Skywarp.

The dark Seeker felt the momentary urge to plant a hand underneath the tray and flip it into the tanker's face, but restrained himself. They'd only lock him up and let him withdraw, again, the way his luck was going right now. He took a cube, hesitantly, and examined it for a few quiet seconds before finally speaking. "This, ah… this isn't Basic, is it?"

"Quite correct. In your hand you hold Crisis Blue. Basic has become, how can I put it… unavailable."

"You mean, it's not strong enough, and you're not going to give me any more." He glanced up, unimpressed.

"Essentially? Yes. Crisis is your only option, because I don't trust you."

"Huh." He wrinkled his nose. "I can't help thinking I'd rather be lectured on _trust_ by someone better versed in it."

Pulsar gave the analyst a reproachful look, taking her own cube but not attempting to try it. "I thought we were supposed to be _friends_, Cali," she said, flatly. "I told you some of my darkest secrets because I trusted you, and all this time you were _lying_ to me-"

"Something I _do_ regret, Pulse," Calibrator soothed, sadly. "You always were a good friend to me, regardless of my own faults, and I never betrayed your confidence, passed your secrets on to anyone-"

"You constantly disparaged me-!" Pulsar argued. "All the time you were hiding under that vocal modifier, you insulted _me_, insulted _my abilities_, made insinuations about my allegiances-" She waved the hand not clutching the Crisis. "You called me a _worthless bike_, Cali…!"

Fatigue swatted her around the back of the helm, tiredly. "Just take your damn medicine and stop giving the Boss a hard time, Skinny."

"Stop giving _her_ a hard time-?!"

"Look. You both have two choices," Calibrator said, softly, her voice at last dropping the friendly pretence. "You can either take your medicine, like good little addicts, or you can go back into confinement." She gave Skywarp a pointed look. "And I don't mean until you've changed your mind, I mean to get you _out of the way_. I have no qualms about permanently removing you if it means I don't have to worry what games you're playing."

"Is that a threat?" the Decepticon challenged, chin up, belligerently.

"Interpret it however you like," she stared him down. "Keep on pushing, and I _may _just permit Fatigue to be imaginative with you. I am quite sure he has plenty of things in his subspace he'd be inclined to try."

Skywarp grumbled wordlessly and glared at the tractor, who did his best to look innocent.

Pulsar stared down into her cube, half-watching Skywarp's visual investigation of his own. It was even smaller than normal, just a few mouthfuls, and had none of the shimmering, effervescent violence of Ruin. She didn't care what Cali said, this must be a trick – she wouldn't be able to tolerate it, would end up completely purging her system, and they'd give her Screaming Blue instead, as a punishment, and she'd end up at the bottom of the docks somewhere, all greyed out and spark-less. She glanced up and watched as Skywarp took an investigative sip, his pale brow furrowed briefly in thought.

"-_Well-_?" She mouthed the words at him.

He shrugged, and took another mouthful – although less warily, this time. _Seems okay._

She stared down into the calm lilac depths of the Crisis, steeled her nerve, and took her own hesitant sip. Passing the dose back to her pumps took surprising effort – it felt as if she were trying to swallow without actually committing herself to it… And although it was only a little mouthful, that was usually no barrier to the firm, no-nonsense kick in the spark she usually got from Ruin. She waited for the low grinding spark-deep hurt as the Blue integrated, the desire to purge everything and…

There was nothing. The Crisis interlaced through her programming as smoothly as silk, and her pumps didn't so much as _whisper_ in complaint. It was almost like taking untainted energon. She glanced up to meet Skywarp's puzzled stare across the top of the cube's crystal lattice.

"You look surprised," Cali observed, watching carefully.

"A little," Pulsar admitted, reluctantly. "You said it's stronger than Ruin, but it's… gentler. I expected something _hard_. Ruin always gave me such a kick in the power-regulator, I guess I expected something _worse_…"

"Crisis is as perfected as the product has ever been," Calibrator explained, carefully. "It integrates smoothly, it takes longer to withdraw from, and is easier to hide – not that it matters particularly about the latter, in your cases, any more." _You just have to be a lot more careful about your dose_, she added, to herself.

Pulsar turned the cube between her fingertips, and confirmed the distinct absence of visible fractals in it. She vented stale air, tiredly. Much as she hated to admit it, this wasn't bad. Ruin often had an intense, disorienting high after the kick of a violent integration, but Crisis was… smooth. Had a long, heady calm… actually felt kinda relaxing. She cupped the cube between her palms and took a longer daught-

"Easy does it. I think that's about enough," Calibrator gently pushed the cube away from her. "You don't want to overdose."

Pulsar whined softly and chased the cube, briefly, but let it go. The idea that Cali was just using it for its sedating effect flickered very briefly through her awareness, but was quickly dismissed. At least her friend was still looking out for her well being…! Anyone else would have happily let her overdose.

Calibrator settled to the floor next to her. "I would still like a confidant, Pulsar," she suggested, quietly, as if it were some terrible admission, taking one pale hand into both of hers. "My boys are respectful and good workers, but, ah… not the most appropriate sort of people to just talk things through with. It would do me a great honour if you would just stay here as a friend. Someone to talk to."

Pulsar stared down at the dark fingers that had wrapped around her own, and smiled, sadly. "I'm not sure I'd be good at that. I mean, I'm still a police officer. I'm still an Autobot. You're still technically the enemy. I don't know if I can just… forget my allegiance, just like that-…"

"Not even for an old friend?" Calibrator gave her an exaggeratedly downcast look. "I'm offering you a privileged position, here, Pulse. Please?"

"Can I think about it?"

Calibrator smiled. "Of course! How long do you need?"

"Hey, Boss? I think you've given me a duff one," Skywarp piped up, glumly, looking contemplative but crestfallen. "Can I have another?"

Calibrator narrowed her optics at him. She'd been doing quite well, indoctrinating her old friend, and the Seeker's interruption might have negated that bit of work. "Define exactly what you mean by 'duff'," she challenged, suspiciously.

He spread his hands, and waved the empty cube. "It's not doing anything! I still feel all twitchy." He gazed down into the empty lattice, as if he'd be able to see the part he hypothesised was missing. "Maybe you forgot to put the actual Blue in it."

"If that had been pure energon, you would have purged it," she corrected. "Crisis may integrate more smoothly, but it _is_ still Blue."

"Well, whatever. It still didn't work!" He threw the cube at her, and she managed to catch it just before one of the sharp corners caught her nose. "So I figure, either you get your idiots-" He paused very briefly to shoot a snide glance at Siphon. "-to bring the proper stuff, or you _quit nagging me_, and let me go."

Calibrator pursed her lips in displeasure, but flicked a hand at Siphon, who nodded and vanished briefly off to fetch more supplies. "I know you're playing games," she warned, softly, watching Skywarp snatch his second cube off the tanker. "And these are not good times to do such a thing."

"Games?" He curved a brow, archly. "You're just being paranoid, now."

"You have already taken far more Crisis than you need," she corrected, softly. "Even Pulsar should have needed more than you to satisfy her withdrawal, since she was primed with Ruin."

"Well, it would _help_ if you had consistency across your batches," he replied, pithily, examining his third cube. "I mean, _you're _the scientist, right? So surely you know that different machines tolerate things in different ways. _Particularly_ if you're as different as us two," he waved a finger between himself and Pulsar. "She's just a skinny little blip of nothing. I'm bigger and stronger, so it stands to reason I'd tolerate a bigger dose – or is that too hard a concept to grasp?"

Calibrator glared down her fine nose at him. "I do not like your type, Decepticon," she told him, stiltedly. "I don't care for the way you think you can somehow trick me – because yes, I _can_ see your game – and I don't like what you have been doing to my friend, with all your emotional blackmail and trickery."

He promptly snorted Blue down the wrong intake, and spluttered for a moment or two. "You're hardly one to talk, after what _you've _been doing to your 'friend'!" he argued, not sure if he should be _insulted_ or _amused_. "I don't know, maybe lies, backstabbing and treachery are the way Neutrals have traditionally always treated each other!"

"Perhaps we've just been taking tips from the Decepticons," she snapped back, folding her arms.

"Puh." He sneered back at her, then shrugged, offhand, swigged at the cube-

-Something kicked against his pumps. He'd not quite managed to completely recover from his _last _half-drowning, but promptly sucked fuel down the wrong intakes and made himself splutter all over again. "What was-… _uff… _what was that?" he garbled.

Calibrator spread her hands. "Maybe just another 'duff batch'," she suggested, dryly. "You're really not having very much luck with this, are you? Crisis is the best I have designed, but occasional imperfections do slip through. You must have had another of them."

"Crisis is _lumpy_?"

Calibrator frowned at him. "What?" She waved her hands. "Actually, don't bother explaining. Getting sense out of you is like trying to get energon out of a rock. Occasionally, higher grade Blue makes the pumps spasm. That must be what you just experienced."

Skywarp pouted, hurt, and took refuge in the rest of the cube. "I know what I felt, and it _wasn't_ a spasm," he grumbled, although he seemed… unsure of himself. Or perhaps just more disinclined to argue? Whatever the reason, he finished the rest of the cube in silence, and had visibly relaxed by the time he was finished. "So what are we to do?" he asked, features placid.

"You both work for us, now," Calibrator said, softly. "Do as you are told, and you will be rewarded. Follow your instructions, and life will be comfortable. Life will become a lot more difficult if you are disobedient."

"They know we've been here," Skywarp reminded her, softly. "They'll know if we've even just thought about changing where our alliance lies. And they'll suspect us, anyway! What do you think we'll be able to achieve?"

"If things go to plan, this will be the final time you need to return," she informed him. "If by some quirk of fate you actually achieve your objective, you will have no need to go back."

"But my friends-" Both Seeker and Policebot argued, in unison.

"-Are no longer your friends!" Calibrator interrupted. "Your allegiance is here. With us. Your 'friends' already have no time for you – they see you as the weak link, the break point. Recall how they had no qualms about attacking you to prove you tested positive for Blue?" She gave Skywarp a pointed look, and watched him flinch. "What do you think they will do when they find out you have been back here? This is your only option!"

Pulsar nodded, quietly. "It's a… tempting offer," she agreed, softly. "Back home, I'm one of the lowest-ranking officers. Here, you offer me respect…"

Skywarp was still dithering, but did seem to be slowly succumbing to the Blue. "But… I've been with my wingmates for so long-…" he wavered. "I can't just-"

"You _can_ just and you _will_ just," Calibrator cut in, grimly, giving him a long hard look. "You will remain our agents, or you will be removed altogether. I have no time for irresolution, and I have no time for those I can't trust. If you are going to have any doubts about your allegiance, I _will_ get to know, one way or another, so you had better speak up _now_, before things get… how should I put it so there can be no misunderstandings? _Painful_."

"The threats aren't necessary," Skywarp pointed out. "You don't need to _bully _me over to your side-"

"I know. Anyone can be bribed, if the appropriate persuasions are applied," she agreed, with a little smile. "I'm quite sure we can find something to your liking."

Skywarp sank to one knee so his head was lower than hers, respectfully, and he looked… well, almost _dazed_. He had a placid, absent expression on his face, and his lips were curved in a slight smile. He'd have been deep under the influence of Crisis, if everything had worked properly. Calmed to such a degree he was almost sedated. His mind just right for gently shaping into something new – but there was something about him that made Calibrator suspicious. He was looking a little _too _vacant. She had the strong suspicion he was still playing his games, but-… no matter. She already had counter-measures in place.

"I will want proof of your loyalty, Skywarp, before I dare bring you any closer to the epicentre," she explained, softly, tracing her fingers over his pale brow. "As you in particular have the potential to be a troublemaker. I need to know you are trustworthy."

"What do you want me to do?" he asked, softly, bowing his head and remaining on one knee.

"Bring me one of Starscream's null-rays," she instructed, softly. "And I don't care what you have to do to get it. Kill him, if needs be."

He didn't even argue it. "Your wish is my command, oh gracious leader," he lifted his gaze to meet hers, placidly, and brushed his lips across the back of her hand, respectfully.

A breem or two later, all instructions appropriately passed on and supplies provided, Calibrator stood out on the landing stage and watched the unnatural pair gradually vanish into the inky sky.

"Do you think he'll do it?" Siphon wondered, coming up behind her and placing his hands affectionately on her shoulders. "That'd deal with two problems in just one blow! The main threat gets neutralised, and you get those nonlethal weapons you wanted for us."

"It would be nice to think he could be trusted, but my instinct says no," she demurred, sadly. "He has his own agenda, and his own game that he is playing. He might be acting co-operative, but I have no doubt that he is already trying to twist this to his advantage."

"Even on Crisis? I thought you said most machines were susceptible to the forced loyalty-"

"Most are," she agreed, darkly, "if they actually _take_ it. The amount of Crisis _he _took far exceeded the amount he'd need to kill himself with an overdose, so he's clearly playing games with us. He probably diverted it into a standby tank." She glared up at the dwindling pinpoints of Skywarp's thrusters in the sky above. "I wouldn't be surprised if he barely integrated enough to get rid of his withdrawal for a few breems."

"Are we going to have to go after him?" Siphon wondered, dismayed. "I don't think we stand much of a chance at getting inside the station, any more, now we've got no operatives in there."

"Oh no, I have already taken steps to ensure he won't play his games for much longer. By the time he gets back to the police station, he'll be past the point of caring about telling his friends about our little surprises." Calibrator smiled, dangerously. "He will just have to be taught the hard was that even though we do not share his faction, we are just as capable of duplicity and damage. If it means we lose him as an operative, so be it."

"Bit of a waste of resources."

"Regretfully, yes, but they are the sort of dangerous resources we don't need." Calibrator touched her fingers to one of the hands on her shoulders. "I would rather lose a flier and keep my inner circle, than attempt to trust the Decepticon and lose everything."

Siphon hummed, pleased. "You know we'd do anything for you."

"I know you would." She gave him a smile. "Take Deuce, and go and round up as many, ah… as many loyalists from the city as you can find," she instructed, at last, softly, shivering under the way his fingers danced a playful tattoo down her arms and he vented warm air across the back of her neck. "We will have to, ah… mmh-… that is-… we will have to, ah-… step up operations." _Siphon was being most distracting!_ "We can't hope the Police will remain at ah!- at a distance for much longer."

"Your wish is my command, oh gracious leader," he confirmed, amusedly, echoing Skywarp's words. "We'll do you proud."

0o0o0o0o0

Once out of sight and out of earshot, heading back towards the station, the two addicts had finally deemed it safe to let their masks slip.

"What are you doing?" Pulsar demanded, staring up into Skywarp's placid features. "The volume of Crisis you took – how in Primus are you not overdosing?!"

He smiled, genially. "Oh, you just let me worry about that. I'm just engaging in a very old and very famous human practice."

"What exactly is _that_?!"

He finally looked down at her. "Faking it!" He grinned, wickedly. "I diverted most of the Crisis into a backup tank," he explained, as the station came into view in the middle distance. "Starscream will want some of the pure stuff to test, right? And to put in his weirdo cure-device-box-whatever-thing? So… how better to get him a sample than from the source?"

"But what if you leak?!" Was he being stupidly brave, or just stupid, she wondered?

"Pulse, it's a fuel tank," he scolded. "It's designed solely for the holding of liquid fuel. It's not gonna suddenly start leaking just because it has Blue in it instead of energon."

She vented air in a huff, and rearranged her grip a little more comfortably. Looking at him was infinitely preferable to watching the ground flash past below. "I still think you're taking a needless risk."

"Oh, psh. You're just _worrying _needlessly. Besides, it's not bad, is it, this one? Smooth, calming, doesn't make you want to just purge…" Skywarp commented, sleepily, and she noticed he was getting gradually more and more sluggish and lower in the air. "Almost makes you _want _to go join forces with 'em.

"Primus help us, what's a 'skinny blip of nothing' like _me_ going to do if a dedicated, devoted Decepticon like _you_ is having second thoughts about his allegiance?" In spite of her fear of heights, Pulsar wished he'd go a little faster, a little higher – just so she'd know he was all right. Much slower and he'd stall himself out of the sky altogether.

Skywarp made a _pfft_ noise, either not noticing or not caring about his decreasing airspeed. "Yeah, but I'm a Decepticon," he reminded her, unnecessarily. "I'm _supposed_ to be fickle, right?"

"Not so fickle that you abandon your faction altogether…!" She chanced a glance down over her shoulder and was relieved to find he was making the final run to the station, pulling his feet up and pointing his toes into a landing. She hoped – without a whole lot of conviction – that was the reason he'd got so unnaturally torpid in the air.

Skywarp touched down lightly, and had carried her halfway up the steps to the main entrance before she managed to prod her way into his attention and get him to put her down. "Oh, right, yeah. Sorry. I forgot you ground-pounders like to have your feet on the floor all the time," he apologized, distractedly amused, and patted her head. "Better?"

Nice though it was to have this fluff-brained semi-affectionate mech around instead of the sneery oaf she'd endured before, it was worrying her. It was almost as if he was still integrating the Crisis and slowly getting more intoxicated, which he shouldn't have been doing if his tanks were patent-

"Warp, how are your tanks holding up?" she wondered, cautiously, following him through the front doors.

"My tanks are fine," he waved a hand, airily, ambling along.

"Sure?"

He gave her a half-hearted reproachful look. "I might not be _clever_, but I know how my diagnostics work. All my seals are holding up just fine."

"Right. Um… hadn't you better go give Starscream that sample of Crisis, now?" she prodded, gently, worried about how absent-minded he was looking. The quicker his tanks were emptied, the better.

"You know, that is an _excellent_ idea," he agreed, dreamily, slinging an overly-friendly arm around her shoulders and dragging her along. "We'll go visit el Screaming One." He'd gone several strides in the wrong direction before she put the brakes on. "What?"

"The lab is _this _way," she reminded him, managing to steer him into an about-face and down the correct branch of the corridor.

"It is?" He let himself be led. "I guess you know best. You've lived here longer than I have."

It took every ounce of self-control not to break into a run. Maps and directions were Skywarp's speciality, so if he'd forgotten where the lab was…

Both Starscream and Thundercracker were working in the lab, navigating their large wings skilfully around the rest of the scurrying technicians, when the two addicts finally arrived.

"Hey, Screamer! I got you a sample of her newest one!" Skywarp greeted, looking… wobbly, clinging lopsidedly to the smaller officer who was barely strong enough to hold him upright, her knees already bowing. Inappropriately jovial. "It's a good one, I tell you! Integrates as smooth as you like. You'd almost not be able to tell it wasn't energon."

Starscream gave him a puzzled look. "Warp, are you high again? Because if you _are-_"

"No, no, I'm fine," the teleport argued, waving his hands, smiling. "I just had to steal more than I needed! You got somewhere for me to put it?"

Starscream watched his hands. "If you're going to actually get it out of your subspace, you can just put it on a table," he confirmed, warily.

"What? Oh! No, no, it's not in my subspace, I've got it in my tanks. Got any empties I could use?"

Thundercracker pulled a face. "Warp, that's disgusting."

Skywarp snickered, releasing Pulsar from under his arm and tottering into a table instead. "Just gimme a cube, and I won't even make you watch."

Thundercracker and Starscream swapped looks, but the blue Seeker held out the required empty. "Just hurry up about it, would you?" Thundercracker suggested. "The quicker you're sorted, the quicker we can pack you off to the dorms to assimilate all that excess energy into your relays."

"Huh!" Skywarp grabbed for the cube and missed it twice before finally getting his fingers to connect with it. "Look, guys, could you stop moving the walls, please?"

Thundercracker frowned at him. "Do what, Warp?"

Skywarp canted his head over to one side – he was looking increasingly wobbly. "Never mind."

"Have you had any of what he's on?" Starscream directed his attention at Pulsar, optics narrowed.

"A little," she agreed, not managing to tear her own gaze from the drunken teleport. "I never got like this, though… You've got to get him emptied, as soon as possible."

"Agreed," Starscream growled, and turned to one of the technicians. "Can you go fetch me some things from storage? And be quick about it…?"

"Guys, stop fragging about. This isn't funny," Skywarp scolded, while Starscream relayed his list hastily to the tech. "If I wanted silly flashing lights, I'd go down a club somewhere."

"Warp, we're not doing anything." Thundercracker argued, anxiously. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Well, you must be doing _something_, 'cause now I can't see-… oh, no, it's okay, there you are. Hm, I didn't take you for the _pink_ sort of mech, Screamer. When'd you get the new paint job?" Skywarp tottered unsteadily, as if the floor was moving, and stood swaying with his feet spread apart for balance for a good few moments. "I don't think it suits you, you know. Doesn't go with the green."

Starscream swapped a look with Thundercracker, who was already on an intercept course to grab Skywarp before he fell right over.

"And I… ooh" Skywarp went on. "Ooh, that's not right."

"Warp, define 'ooh'," Starscream instructed, sharply, worriedly, approaching from the opposite side.

Skywarp managed a funny, lopsided smile, although it was equal parts confusion and discomfort rather than amusement. "Ooh, I think one of my tanks has ruptured," he said, dazedly, and collapsed on top of Thundercracker.

Somewhere in the distance, he could hear Starscream howling for an endoscope – whatever one of those was – but he didn't have long to ponder over it. The strange, swirling colours all twisted in on themselves and the world turned off.


	27. Chapter 27

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Twenty-Seven**

**Disclaimer: **As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. (...Except where they're obviously OCs, which Hasbro would be silly to want to claim.)

**A/N:** Thanks again to all my lovely reviewers. :) Trying hard to keep the pace and get it finished (AND keep it interesting...). ;)

Slightly unrelated fluff: keaalu . livejournal . com / 186132 . html

* * *

"Where the _slag _is that endoscope!" Starscream howled over his shoulder. "If I wanted it in an orn's time, I'd have fetched it myself!"

"I'll get it," Thundercracker offered, urgently, and lurching straight into a run from his sitting position, very nearly running on all fours out of the main door.

Starscream bent to examine Skywarp, trying not to let himself jitter too much. They were already cutting it far, _far _too fine, if they left it much longer he'd be beyond help, like the landlord… The teleport was burbling very quietly to himself, twitching as more of that accursed Crisis seeped into his system. It was almost like watching him _melt_, this long, slow, frightening overdose-… He'd gone very rapidly from that sort of jovial drunkenness to confusion, and now was descending his way through a staticky delirium – laying down was apparently minimising how much he was absorbing, but he'd _continue _to absorb it until they managed to get his tanks emptied…

Starscream realised that there were actual words in the mess of static and chirps of broken Decepticon slang, and leaned down closer to his delirious wingmate. "What's in the walls?" he coaxed, trying to keep his voice even when he really wanted to give the teleport a good shake for being so damn stupid, and demand an explanation of what he meant. "Come on, Warp, you can tell me. We can fix it."

Skywarp just rolled his head and groaned, and the words dissolved back into unintelligible fizzing.

There was the clatter of thrustered heels and Thundercracker crashed through the doorway, clipping his wings hard on the way in, clutching a spool of piping in one black hand. "Got it, I got it," he staggered over. "Fraggers were taking the long way back. What did you want it for?"

"We're going to have to manually evacuate his tanks," Starscream snapped. "If we're lucky he won't have absorbed too much into his system."

"Sorry, Screamer-… do _what_ to him?" Thundercracker looked shaken.

"Just give me the damn instrument!" Starscream snatched it out of his wingmate's hands before the blue Seeker had even fully processed the words.

Thundercracker sat back on his thrusters and watched silently as Starscream fed the tube down through his wingmate's fuel intake, guiding it past the assorted pumps and analytical plates by the tiny camera at the tip. "What can I do?"

"You can be quiet, I'm concentrating."

Starscream's snap was probably unnecessarily harsh, but Thundercracker didn't argue it. Skywarp's features had lost that drunken joviality – now they were flat, strained, and his ruddy optics were clearly unfocussed. His jaw hung slack around the endoscope his wingmate was wielding.

"Okay… okay, got it…" Starscream kicked a cube into place, sucked very briefly on the trailing end of the endoscope to get the fluid moving, then dropped the open end into the cube before he could swallow any himself. Fine purple liquid swirled briefly around the bottom of the lattice, and the cube rapidly began to fill. "I just hope I caught him in time."

Thundercracker touched a finger briefly to the sensitive components around Skywarp's optic, and was rewarded by a sluggish flinch. "Well, he's still got some of his reactions," he confirmed, quietly. "I guess that's a start."

"We'll know better once the stuff starts to wear off," Starscream sighed, watching as Skywarp whined wordless discomfort and waved his hands uselessly at the endoscope, trying to palm it out of his mouth; Thundercracker caught his hands, trapped them carefully out of the way and murmured quiet reassurances to him. "I'm hoping he'll get more lucid and more awake as he starts to come down."

"You think he will?"

"Extrapolating from what we already know about it, I _hope_ he will." Starscream nodded. "Psychological effects – or at least, _Blue induced_ psychological effects – have resolved each time he comes down off his high, remember?"

Thundercracker nodded, silently, but his features were creased in dubious concern.

"My guess is the same will be true in this case. Although knowing Warp and his predilection for doing the opposite of anything anyone expects of him… hm, you could be right, TC." Starscream sighed, tightly. "He's got to be almost empty _now_, surely," he grumbled, leaning down closer-

Something bright silver shot up the outside of the endoscope and lunged for his face. He gave an inarticulate yelp of alarm and fell backwards onto his aft, flung out an arm and backhanded it smartly across the room.

"Whoa!" Thundercracker leaped back out of the way as it sailed through the air towards his chest.

There was a _crack_ of precise lilac energy from one null-ray and the silver thing dropped to the floor, stunned. Thundercracker hastily dropped a toughened glass bell-jar down over it.

"What in the Pit is _that_?" he wondered, out loud, hesitantly approaching to peer down at it.

The device looked like a tiny silver arachnid of some sort, small enough to sit comfortably on a Seeker's thumb and still have room to wave its legs around. Its multiple legs were tipped with small suction cups, however, and instead of mandibles it bore on its front end a pair of wicked, diamond-tipped drills. It lay on its back for a while, legs waving slowly.

"No wonder his slagging tanks ruptured!" Starscream swore, angrily. "This little Pit-spawn drilled a hole in them!"

Pulsar stared down at the silver insect, dismayed. "He said something about a 'lump' in one of the cubes he had," she said, softly, watching as it woozily righted itself and examined its temporary prison. "Cali said he was imagining things…"

"She must have already realised he was trying to trick her," Thundercracker growled.

The spider climbed the walls of the bell jar and rattled itself against it, looking peeved at its temporary confinement, then revved its drills and applied them to the glass. The ringing _squeal_ as the diamond-edged blades cut into it was painful on the audios.

The spider had ground its way halfway out of the jar before Starscream glowered and shot it again – this time he dispensed with the pleasantries, however, and used a standard cannon, full power. The thin beam of superheated ions drilled down through the robotic insect's back, lighting it from inside with first an infernal red-hot then a _white_-hot glow, and after a second it seemed to implode slowly on itself, all its jerking, spasming legs folding upwards as its body dissolved into a puddle of whitish goop on the floor.

Now they'd managed to drain his tanks, Skywarp wasn't any miraculously _better, _but at the same time thankfully didn't look like he'd got any _worse_; little burbles of delirium occasionally escaped his vocaliser, but it was mostly static. His optics were crossing in his effort to see the endoscope, and he was making an uncoordinated and ineffectual effort at pulling it free of his intakes.

Starscream knelt next to him, and brushed his fingers away from the device. "Steady there, Warp," he soothed, carefully drawing back on the scope. "Don't pull on it, you'll damage your pumps."

"Okay, so _now_ what are we going to do with him?" Thundercracker asked, softly, gathering Skywarp up off the floor and into a sitting position; the teleport snickered quietly and slumped against him. "Wait for you to perform miracles on his brain?"

"To be perfectly honest? I have no idea," Starscream admitted, rubbing the back of his helm, tiredly. "He'll still withdraw off Crisis like he did off Basic – and I didn't design the Tank to fix overdoses, just get them over the addiction. Who knows what state his brain is in, any more…"

Skywarp presumably found something in the whole situation hilarious; he sat propped against Thundercracker and bubbled with laughter – although he could equally have been in the grip of a crushing despair, by the way his face was contorted into a grimace of effort and the laughter was so filled with static it could have been sobs.

"We'll have to get him back into the isolation bay, for now," Starscream sighed. "If it comes to the worst and he tries teleporting, at least he won't get anywhere."

"You think he might?" Thundercracker looked up.

"Oh, I'm sure he will, at some point," Starscream confirmed, nodding tiredly. "Particularly if something alarms him. While he's so… non-lucid, I doubt he'll think to properly triangulate."

Thundercracker glanced away. "Yeah, I'd rather he didn't teleport himself – and anyone helping him – into a wall," he agreed. He only remembered the dark Seeker doing that once or twice, and it was sufficiently early in their history that it could be chalked up to inexperience, but the quantum entanglement of atoms meant the only way to get him _out_ of the wall was to dismantle him, and replace all the parts irretrievably bonded with the furniture (an arm the first time, all the way across his torso the second). Should he do it _now_, while so completely inebriated, he might end up with his primary processors (or, Primus forbid, his spark) lethally bonded with something immobile.

Starscream fixed him with a serious look. "And TC? Please. You need to go and sit with him."

"What? With-… Screamer-…! Can't you find me something better to do than _spark-sit_ him?" Thundercracker folded his arms and glared, bitterly. "Like, I don't know, go teach that stinking pile of smeltings why we're not Autobots?"

"And what exactly do you think is going to happen when he starts to come down?" Starscream wondered, exasperated, and glared at his wingmate. "It's not going to be a nice gentle ride! He's not going to just get a little bit shaky. If we're _lucky_, he'll probably just sit there and _hallucinate himself insane_. I need him to stay balanced for as long as possible, and I don't trust anyone else to stay with him!"

"What about Squawky? She sure seems to have ingratiated her way into his favourites!" Thundercracker glared back, shooting a look at Pulsar, who tried to pretend she wasn't there at all, really.. "She'd probably _enjoy_ it, the dopey Autobot."

"That's as maybe, but in the short term? I want someone I _trust_ to stay with him. Just in case." Starscream repeated, more slowly. "Given that it was that wretched Auto-moron got him in this mess in the first place, you might understand my reluctance to have _her alone_ with him."

Thundercracker backed down, quietly. "All right," he relented, quietly. "All right. I guess it wouldn't hurt for a while…" He put his hands under Skywarp's arms and helped him to his unstable feet. "Come on, Warpy. We'll go find you somewhere comfortable to cool your afterburners for a while."

Skywarp made a valiant effort at standing, but his knees kept sagging and Thundercracker had to resort to mostly dragging him.

"You." Starscream caught Pulsar's upper arm, before she could make good her escape, and gave her a tug towards the workbench. "Over here."

"Um, y-yes sir-…" She scuttled after him, trying not to get too close.

"I want a volume assessment," he instructed, sternly, setting the cube of Crisis down on the bench. "You were with him. How much did he have, and how much would you estimate is left?"

Pulsar gave the large, part-filled cube a critical look. "He had three cubes," she recalled, then revised, upon seeing Starscream's horrified expression, "but they were small! Much smaller than this. Smaller than even the normal Blue cubes."

Starscream relaxed, marginally. "So a significant volume would have gone unabsorbed?"

The Policebot nodded. "I'd guess you have… mayybe just under two cubes worth in there."

"And how much did you have?" He narrowed his optics, suspiciously. "Given your pre-treatment with Ruin, and resulting ability to tolerate a bigger dose, I want an estimate of exactly how big a degree Warp has overdosed himself by."

Her features pinched in concern. "I didn't have a lot," she replied, softly, glancing back at the door Thundercracker had helped Skywarp through. "Certainly nowhere near a whole cube. Probably only a quarter, maximum."

Starscream sighed. "Damnit, Warp, you don't ever do things by _halves_, do you?" he cursed his absentee wingmate, irritably, then glanced back up at Pulsar. "All right, you can go," he groused, then added; "if you have nothing better to do, TC could probably do with a hand."

"…what?"

"That was a _hint_, Autobot," Starscream's voice became a growl. "With a sentiment I will not be espousing on a regular basis. You want to go sit with him? You better get a fragging move on, before I change my mind."

0o0o0o0o0

Forceps was back home, supposedly "convalescing" (but getting twitchy with inactivity), when her communications pinger in the corner of the lounge went off, flickering briefly with blue light, which she knew was Spotweld's way of saying "it's the station calling, again?" She smiled, vaguely – it had hardly been half an orn since Hardline checked she was okay (again), and his mother hen act was wearing even her patience a little thin. She _almost_ ignored it, but… no. That was just rude.

"Look, I told you already, you don't have to keep checking up on me-" she started, thumbing the _receive_ button.

Starscream smirked half-heartedly back at her. "So sorry to disappoint," he snerked, not sounding in the slightest bit apologetic. "But I _wasn't_ checking up on you."

"Ach, sorry. I was expecting someone else." She settled into the seat, with a wry smile.

"Well, _that _much was obvious," Starscream rolled his optics. "Listen, Sepp?" She began to notice just how _tired_ he looked. "Are you properly back on your feet, yet? Because I need to ask a favour off you."

"I'm not as steady as I'd like to be, but I'm getting there," she confirmed, nodding, and added; "I can probably cope with minor surgery, if that was what you were going to ask, just not the heavy stuff." It was a bit of a lie – Resector had made her swear off surgery for at least another dozen orns, but she figured Starscream wasn't likely to go tattling to one of his least favourite Autobots. "What's the problem?"

"Warp has a ruptured fuel tank," Starscream explained, carefully. "It's in just the right place to stop him partitioning his fuel properly, and he'll keep on overdosing on Blue unless we give him a mouthful at a time, which really isn't very workable in the long-term."

"And you'd like me to replace it?" Forceps intuited. "I'm not sure I even _have_ any appropriate tanks. Do you have any schematics so I can source some?"

"Ah, well, just a patch job would be fine for now," Starscream demurred. "I'm not sure how well he'd stand up to full surgery at the moment."

"He's got that bad?"

Starscream sighed, tiredly, and rubbed his temples. "Cali poisoned him, essentially. He's massively overdosed on Crisis Blue and he's spending all his time hallucinating, right now. I don't want him to overdose all over again."

"Wait, wait… _Cali_ poisoned him? As in Calibrator?" Forceps skewered him with a horrified stare. "_Please _tell me it was in some sort of laboratory accident."

Starscream grimaced and shook his head. "She's been controlling things all along. Laying a trail of false starts, sabotaging the evidence, keeping us all one step behind."

Forceps sagged back in her chair. "So you mean to say all this time-… after _everything_…"

"After you patched her up _so_ nicely..."

She glared, hotly. "I _knew_ I should have charged her for the work," she grumbled, and pouted at the inappropriate snicker she got in response. "All right, I'll get there as quick as I can. The sooner you three are back to peak operating capacity, the better."

0o0o0o0o0

Skywarp had begun to return to lucidity as the acute high wore off, supporting himself without having to cling like grim death to Thundercracker, but he'd also slowly transitioned from just hallucinating to hallucinating and withdrawing. Just sitting talking quietly to him was keeping him _somewhat _grounded, but his burbling, staticky incoherence had turned into coherent delusions, and he'd already worked his shakiness (and the way he couldn't _stop_ convulsing) into a full-blown conspiracy against him.

Exactly whathe was seeing, no-one had quite worked out, and he seemed reluctant to elaborate, although if some of his lines of questioning were anything to go by, they seemed to be _visual_ rather than _auditory_ hallucinations. He'd already asked Thundercracker what the point to him having _feathers_ was, weren't his thrusters good enough? And was ambivalent about whether he thought Pulsar was a living entity, or just a strangely animated doll.

The mottled floor tiles were the current target of his confused attention, particularly when Thundercracker got up to go to the communications hub. "N-no, no, stay there, TC," Skywarp pleaded, pathetically. "Don't st-stand on the floor. Don't, don't…!"

"It's all right, I'm staying here," Thundercracker soothed, sitting back onto the berth. "Why mustn't I walk on the floor?"

"You c-can't see it?" Skywarp gazed down at the tiles, apparently hallucinating something nasty, clinging shakily to his crossed ankles and rocking slightly. "You'll sink in, and b-burn up." He glanced up, feverishly. "You have to stay here."

"Okay, okay, I have no plans to walk on the floor until you tell me it's safe. All right?"

Mollified but suspicious, Skywarp just nodded, jerkily, gazing down on the tiles as if they were moving.

"Listen, Screamer? When are you going to be done with the Crisis we took off him?" Thundercracker asked, quietly, opening a private channel to the laboratory. "We've going to have to give him some, before he shakes himself to bits."

"_I'm very, very reluctant to give him any __more__, TC_," Starscream warned, softly. "_We don't know what sort of dose he's going to need to control the withdrawal, since he's already overdosed, and it might use up the very last of this exemplar – which I'm going to need to program the Tank_."

"Well we're going to have to give him _some_thing! He's still going downhill, and I'm not sure he's going to be able to take much more of this." Thundercracker glanced over his shoulder to where Skywarp sat; the teleport was clinging like grim death to Pulsar, who was in turn struggling to keep him steady, but all both had succeeded at was making them both shake.

Starscream made a funny little non-committal noise, and Thundercracker ran out of patience. "Argh! Look, no offence, Screamer, but you're not the one trying to keep him _grounded_, here!" Thundercracker exclaimed, frustratedly. "I need to do _something_ before he goes right off the rails."

Starscream had already put his best _hassle-me-at-your-own-peril_ voice on. "_All right, all right. __So long as you don't use all of it, I don't care what you elect to do,_" he snapped. "_The longer I'm talking to you, the longer it'll take me to get the Tank into operational order._"

By the time Thundercracker finally got back with a tiny dose of Crisis, Skywarp's attention had come up off the floor, but he looked no more relaxed.

"She said she put it in the walls," Skywarp stuttered, optics wide. A frightened heat fairly blazed off him. "In the walls to kill all of us. TC, you've got to stop it, you've got to get it all out."

"Get what all out, Warp?" Thundercracker set the cube to one side, and held his arms, gently. "Skywarp, you still grounded? Get what out?"

But Skywarp either couldn't or wouldn't elaborate. He clutched at his wingmate and shook his head, beseechingly, gazing around himself at all four walls in turn and repeating the same little request over and over. "You've got to get it out, TC. It's all in the walls!"

"Well, we'll sort that out in a minute, all right? We got you something nice to drink, first," Thundercracker explained, carefully, and after a few moments watching the unfocussed, questing gaze flicker across his face finally his wingmate's optics found his own.

"…something nice…?" Skywarp held out his shaky hands, and took the cube, obediently. He spent a few moments examining the thin layer of purple in the bottom – if they'd put much more in, he'd have vibrated it all over the place – before offering it back. "I don't like this stuff, TC," he whined, quietly. "You're trying to poison me again."

"Just have a little," Thundercracker coaxed, gently, folding his hands over his friend's and guiding the cube back to him. "It'll stop you shaking."

Skywarp stared down at it for another few long minutes. "Will it make me sick again?"

"No. There's just enough to make you feel better," Thundercracker reassured, inwardly hoping he'd brought enough – Starscream had given him the silent treatment and he had to resort to guesswork – and watched as Skywarp finally took the cube's contents. Reassuringly, his shaking rapidly began to ease. "Good?"

"Not good, but a bit better," Skywarp accepted, quietly, hunching his shoulders. "Are you going to get it out, now?"

"Out of the walls? Well, it would help if you told me what it is…"

"I don't know. I don't know." Skywarp hugged his arms around himself. "You just have to get it all out…"

"All right, okay, I'll get something sorted," Thundercracker nodded, backing off to the comms terminal. "Superintendent Boxer?"

"_Thundercracker._" Boxer sounded surprised to get a call. "_Is something wrong?_"

"I don't know. Maybe. I wonder if you could spare an officer or two, for a while?"

There was a pause. "_What do you need them for?_"

"Skywarp says Cali 'put something in the walls'," the blue jet explained, warily. "I need to go and take a look."

"_What leads you to believe this is something other than just another of your friend's hallucinations?_"

"I don't know! I just-… I need to go look, just in case it isn't. Can I borrow some staff?"

"_I'm not sure I can spare anyone to help you chase after Skywarp's wandering mind-_"

"Superintendent – I don't have enough hands to do it myself!" Thundercracker sighed, exasperatedly. "This could well be important! And I only want two or three officers. Just enough to check it out. I mean, if Warp's _wrong_, the worst that can happen is that we've wasted a little time. If he's _right_, we might not get the chance to acknowledge it, because we might all be dead!"

Boxer huffed quietly. "_All right, I'll send two constables your way,_" he acceded, at last. "_And if you _do_ find anything, at all, you will let myself or Hardline know._"

"Of course, Superintendent. If there _is_ something wrong, we'll probably need as many hands as possible to counter the threat!"

0o0o0o0o0

Skywarp didn't like it when Thundercracker left. He watched him slip quietly out past the glass door and away, and whined softly into his captive Policebot's audio. "All going to die," he whimpered, faintly. "We have to get out. Have to get out now."

"It's all right," Pulsar soothed, trying to coax him to loosen his deathgrip a little so she could vent off a little of the build-up of stifling heat between them. "Thundercracker is sorting things out. You're safe."

"How can we be safe when it's all still in the walls?" he challenged, against her neck. "We've got to get out of here, Pulse. We've got to get out of here! Everyone has to get out before we all die-"

"TC is going to fix the problem with the walls, all right?" she promised, not knowing what exactly he thought was in the walls in the first place. "Don't you trust him?"

There was silence for a moment or two. Then he replied, but seemed quite… what? Maybe reluctant? "…yes?"

"You don't trust him?" She looked him in the optic. "But he's one of your brothers…"

"You don't understand. He's working for them!" he whispered, as if imparting a deep, dark secret.

"…what in Primus' name makes you think that?!"

"He wears their colours…! And he keeps giving me more medicine. He's trying to keep my brain damped-down, so they can kill us! Because I'm the only one who knows…! I'm the only one who knows what they're doing!" He tightened his grip on her, and she winced as he squeezed her torso, the deep old fracture aching. "He's going to go and distract them, and then they'll kill us…"

She hesitated, wondering if it was a good thing to remind him. "I've got blue on me, too, Warp," she said, quietly. "So does Starscream. Are we working for Cali as well?"

He drew back a little, to examine her livery. "…no?" he wondered, hesitantly, drawing a finger down her blue shoulder. "But yours is… sort of… purple, I guess."

_Vision must still be playing up_, she guessed; her livery was a deep royal blue. "And Siphon is green," she added. "He's not got any blue on him at all, but he's one of the worst."

Skywarp shuddered. "…just has Blue _in_ him."

0o0o0o0o0

They were a pretty ineffectual-looking pair, Thundercracker considered, with an inward sigh, giving the pair of officers a cursory visual examination as they approached up the corridor. Maybe Boxer was just trying to make a point. Both were small, no higher in rank than constable, and chatting to each other until they noticed him watching; at least they snapped to attention when they realised they'd been caught out.

"You here to give me a hand?" he wondered, folding his arms.

"Aye, sir!" the male confirmed, and the femme nodded her agreement. "Where do you need us to go?"

"All right, um, we can probably wing it. You, that end. _You,_ take the other end," Thundercracker instructed, waving his arms at his two loaned constables. "I'll look under this middle bit."

"What are we looking for?" the smaller one asked, trotting down to her end of the corridor.

"I don't know. Just pull the plates off and give me a shout if you find _anything_ suspicious."

"By suspicious, you mean…?" She was already looking for the seam around the outside of the panel.

"Anything. Anything at all, I don't care, it's better to be over-paranoid and find harmless things than under-paranoid and miss something. So, if it doesn't look like it belongs there…" There was a rattle of clips and the panelling came away easily in his dark fingers, revealing… an empty wall-space and a small bundle of wires for the lighting. All just things that were meant to be there. Thundercracker sighed, and lined the plate back up to load it back onto the fixing clips. "…then it counts as suspicious."

0o0o0o0o0

Forceps still looked a little under the weather, as she made her way up the ramp to the front entrance – still leaning hard on a crutch on her weakened, unsteady right side, a smallish grey satchel slung over her shoulder on the other side – but at least she was up and independently mobile. "Still recalibrating," she explained, dryly, seeing Starscream's brows-raised suspicion. "I forgot how long it took after such a major piece of replacement work."

Hardline immediately took Forceps' arm and relieved her of her crutch, the instant she was close enough, and was pleased to hear her respond with quiet thanks, not try to remain independent and shove him off. Starscream made a noise of disgust and gave his optics an exaggerated roll before turning his back on them and muttering, leading the way inside.

"So what exactly was he playing at that led him to get a hole in such an inaccessible component?" Forceps wondered, watching the pale wings in front of her. "I was trying to work it out, and I realised I have _no_ idea."

"Playing the hero, again," Starscream growled, irritably, and glared up at Hardline, who was trying (not entirely successfully) to swallow his quiet laughter. "I wish he'd just stay stupid and irresponsible! These damned Auto-dorks are rubbing off on him."

"Why have you got him in here, is he that bad?" she wondered, limping into the medical bay.

"No, we just don't trust him not to teleport," Starscream replied, dryly. "You think he's bad _now_, it'd be a whole new incalculable level of awful if he managed to quantum entangle himself with a solid wall."

"Point taken," Forceps accepted, grimly. "Probably make the addiction look like a walk in the park, as well…"

Skywarp didn't look especially overjoyed to see Forceps arrive. "Are you a ghost?" he asked, shrinking down and attempting to hide behind Pulsar. "If I take it back, will you promise not to haunt me?"

"No, I'm not a ghost," the surgeon promised. "I'm here to help."

"You _look_ like a ghost," he argued, quietly. "All broken up, like that."

Forceps glanced down on her neatly-repaired plating, and swapped a look with Starscream, who shrugged. "Just ran afoul of the same machines who got _you_ in this mess."

Skywarp's tense features relaxed a little bit. "Did _they_ kill you? We're going to get them back for it," he informed her. "Right, Screamer?"

"Once you're talking a little bit less nonsense, yes," Starscream agreed. "I need to get back to work. You're all big enough to look after yourselves, and the Tank won't be ready for Warp if I'm sat here talking to you lot the whole time."

"What, you're leaving?!" Skywarp had followed Starscream halfway to the door before his knees buckled and he sagged sideways into Hardline. "Hey, wait, no! You can't leave me here with the ghost-!"

Hardline cast his gaze skywards and carefully manoeuvred Skywarp back onto the bunk.

"What do ghosts need with bodyguards, anyway?" the teleport wondered, shakily, edging away from the riot tank (and his cannon) and trying to steer Pulsar between them without it looking too obvious that was what he was doing. "I'm being good, aren't I? You don't need him here. I don't need to be shot, I promise!

Forceps gave him a speculative look. "They really did a number on your brain, didn't they?" she observed, watching as he peeked around from behind Pulsar's side-lights.

"Come on, you _know_ ghosts can't hurt you. They're just ghosts!" Pulsar suggested, trying to get him to stop pulling backwards on her shoulders.

"Even if _ghosts _don't, _he _might," Skywarp reminded, giving Hardline a long, anxious look. "And what if they steal your brain? Possess you, make you do their bidding… Ghosts can do that, you know!"

"But you don't have a whole lot of brain left to possess, after all that Blue you had."

He gave her a reproachful look. "That was _mean_, Pulse," he told her, softly.

She averted her gaze, actually feeling guilty. "I only meant-… never mind. Sorry."

"Right, Skywarp. Let's get this over with, shall we?" Forceps stepped forward. "Is your tank empty?"

He shrank back. "Why, what do you want to put in it?" he asked, warily, staring at the scope. "I don't want to be inflated. I'm not a hot-air balloon, I'm a fighter jet!"

"No, this is just a camera," Forceps explained, and showed him the screen. "Not an air-hose."

He narrowed his optics, suspiciously, but nodded, watching as the image on the screen moved about, following the direction the tip of the cable pointed. "…all right. I believe you. Just," he allowed.

"Okay, then. Let's have a little look," she said, unspooling the cable; it was narrower than the endoscope Starscream had used, but looked just as uncomfortable. "Open wide, Skywarp."

He shied back from her, giving her a resentful look. "No, I don't think so. I don't like that thing."

"Well, it's going in one way or another. You can either behave yourself, or I'll get Hardline to sit on you." Her features relaxed into a half-smile. "I'll be gentle, and it won't take long, all right? If you wiggle about, it'll be more uncomfortable."

Skywarp _hrf_-ed quietly and gave her a wary look. "So long as you don't hurt me," he agreed, at last. He sat unnaturally quietly, still as a statue while Forceps fed the camera down his intakes and scoped the damaged tank, his crimson gaze clearly affixed on Hardline – or more accurately, the heavy cannon mounted on one of his shoulders.

"Well?" Pulsar wondered, softly, watching. "Is it fixable?"

"It's a minuscule hole," the surgeon confirmed. "A silicone patch should hold him pretty well, until I can source a replacement tank. Pass me my bag, Pulse, I put a few different sizes in there. We'll get him fixed up in no time…"

0o0o0o0o0

Thundercracker's team had covered three corridors already, and the Seeker in charge had begun to think their search was going to prove fruitless when one of his officers gave a yelp and dropped her wall panel in startled surprise.

"What, what is it?" he demanded, striding over, watching as the little vehicle backed into the wall on the opposite side of the corridor, optics wide in shock.

"I f-… I ff--… that!" she stammered, almost speechless, pointing with a shaky finger at the wall cavity.

Tucked inside, wired neatly and comprehensively into the electricity ring main, was a small, flattish grey disc, studded with small circuit components and a couple of diodes, and backed with a pat of something brownish and paste-like. The diodes glowed pleasantly green, but were flickering in careful binary sets that equated to a countdown. Right now, it was on two cycles and five breems.

"Oh my holy-…" On the margins of his hearing, Thundercracker heard the other officer breathe, sounding frightened. "Is that-… but that's a-… that's a-"

"_That_…" Thundercracker agreed, carefully, "is a bomb. And a rather _large_ bomb, at that."


	28. Chapter 28

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Twenty-Eight**

**Disclaimer: **As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. (...Except where they're obviously OCs, which Hasbro would be silly to want to claim.)

**A/N:** Sorry, all; I seem to have tried to use too many characters, I keep failing to give enough airtime to all of them… ;-; :adds "must try harder" to her report card:

* * *

There was the _thump_ of heavy feet in the distance, and after a moment Hardline appeared briefly at the end of the corridor, apparently on his way between the Medical Suite and the Command Hub.

"Chief Inspector?" Thundercracker called, evenly.

Hardline backtracked into view. "What?"

"Could you, ah…" Thundercracker beckoned. "…just come and take a look at this?"

"What is it?" Hardline wondered, advancing down the corridor, and noticing the pair of shellshocked constables trying not to look like they were hiding behind the Decepticon. _Imagery in this place is getting stranger by the day_, he mused.

"Well, I'm not going to shout for everyone in the entire station to hear until we have some sort of plan in place."

"What? Is it really that…" The riot tank's words tailed off at seeing what Thundercracker was pointing to. "…bad," he finished, flatly. His broad face had crimped instantly into a concerned frown. "Where did _that_ come from?"

"A parting gift from our ex-analyst," Thundercracker gave him a sidelong glance. "I don't know how many there are. This is the first we found, but if Skywarp's ramblings are anything to go by she's left us more than just the one."

"Timer's not giving us a whole lot of time to plan, is it?" the giant sighed, examining the connections. "Hnh. What'd be your suggestion on where we go from here?"

"Search the premises. Get every available officer to take a corridor and search it top to bottom," Thundercracker replied, grimly. "We need to know how many of these we're looking at deactivating."

"You think there's more?" Hardline arched a brow, nonetheless moving away towards the small comms pod built into the wall. "Last I saw, your wingmate was hallucinating all manner of crazy things, is it really a good idea putting faith in his ramblings?"

"Ordinarily, I'd say probably not. Warp _does_ have a habit of picking up insignificant things to blow out of all proportion… But then, I think it'd be a very significant fluke if we just _happened_ to find what she'd left, if she only left one," the Seeker nodded, gazing tiredly down on the disc.

"All right. Well, I'll get the bomb squad down here anyway," Hardline accepted, carefully extracting the little microphone from the holder; it looked like a toy in his large hands. "You happy to co-ordinate the search?"

"Yeah. Just give me a minute to warn Screamer – it'll probably take him a cycle or two to stop _throwing_ _things_…"

0o0o0o0o0

Down in the reassigned main forensics lab, Starscream stared up at his invention – quickly dubbed "the Decontamination Tank" for its resemblance to a shallow, inclined aquarium – and nodded to himself, satisfied. The sample program he'd just run had gone completely to plan, the fake "test subject" coming up with green lights right across the board – he just had to make a _few_ more tweaks, and then he could run it for real-

It was at that point that Hardline's voice _boomed_ over the tannoy, startling him into dropping a white-hot microlance on his foot. "Ow-! _Primus_-" he swore, quietly, grabbing for the refrigerant in the can on the sideboard.

"All able-bodied officers are to report to the briefing room immediately!" came the instruction. "And I mean _all_ of you, even if you just got back off a shift, you can recharge later! All those not-quite-so-able-bodied officers can come along too! The rest of you, better assemble in the yard for now; Inspector Celerity will give you directions. And yes, I do mean the civilians among you as well! Now let's move!"

Starscream had stopped hopping in pain long before Hardline had finished speaking, and was instead staring up at the small loudspeaker with a mixture of annoyance and concern. He hoped he was just misinterpreting, and _hadn't _in fact just been told to evacuate the premises…

An instant later, Thundercracker leaned in around the doorway and sadly confirmed it. "Screamer, you got all your schematics somewhere easy to grab?"

Starscream glared at him. "_What_ schematics? I built this from scratch as I went along," he reminded him.

"Well, I hope you can remember how you did it! 'Cause if it goes to the Pit – which it probably will – you're gonna have to build it allll over again," Thundercracker said, and gestured to the Tank.

"What?!" Starscream turned so he had his back to it, and spread his arms, as if he could somehow protect it. "Where in the Pit am I going to get the supplies to do _that_?!"

"Well, you can hang around if you like," Thundercracker shrugged. "But if we can't unplug the devices we've found Cali left, you might find it gets quite hot and noisy in here. And painful. And kind of explodey."

"She left us bombs?" Starscream challenged, flatly, and Thundercracker nodded. "How imaginative."

"Yeah, I know. We're running about like blue-afted wotsits, right now, trying to work out _if_ we can unplug them, _and _how many there are. Might have to rule the whole building out as a lost cause."

The red Seeker vented air in a long, laboured sigh. "I guess I'd better go and get Warp out of here. We're all going to have to sit on him to stop him teleporting, you know."

"Better give Warp some of his medicine before you go," Thundercracker added. "If his tank's okay we might have to risk overdosing him again, because we're not gonna have many places to keep the stuff."

There wasn't actually a lot of Crisis left, Starscream realised, sadly, examining their meagre supply once Thundercracker had sprinted away to co-ordinate the search. He'd used some in the Tank, and some had already been given to Warp, to stop his withdrawal… Which left maybe half of one of those small cubes. And there was going to be nowhere to get more, certainly in the _short _term and probably in the _long _term as well. _Damn_. And he was so close to being finished, as well! He just about resisted the urge to stamp his thruster in temper. All that computing power, going to… waste…

He stared up at his _Vinculum_s, a slow realisation dawning in his optics.

_Cali said that a _Vinculum_ would be powerful enough_. _Assuming she was actually telling the truth…_

"I can't believe I'm actually doing this," Starscream groaned, set the cube into the analysis port, and threw the lever.

0o0o0o0o0

In the medical suite, things had grown peaceful again. Forceps had taken her (reluctant) leave at Hardline's instruction, and Skywarp had mumbled something that actually sounded _almost_ like a thank you, although it was more of a 'thank you for not blowing me up like a balloon' than 'thank you for fixing me'.

The two addicts were alone, now. Pulsar was perched on the edge of the berth with Skywarp behind her, his limbs wrapped around her; she wore a studied long-suffering resignation on her face, but didn't look like she was quite so horribly put out as she was trying to suggest. Skywarp had his cheek against her shoulder, using her as a prop to hold himself upright, but his optics were offline and he looked _almost_ like he was dozing comfortably, for a change, in spite of the occasional little withdrawal tremors that made him twitch. (Of course, his tanks were empty, and Thundercracker hadn't yet arrived with his next dose of Crisis.) It was just a shame he was quite so _heavy_, because it was taking more than a little effort to just remain sitting…

With a patent tank and proper partitioning, it had taken a while longer for Pulsar to get to the point of withdrawal, but at long last she'd had begun to feel twitchy herself. She was trying to ignore it – they were already short on supplies, and she sensed Skywarp's need was significantly greater than hers. Not having overdosed, the worst that could happen was she got shaky and irritable. When Skywarp came down off his cloud, he'd go straight back into the more terrible hallucinations – and he might not stay grounded, next time. She was only too aware how much trust she was putting in the baffle that was keeping him from teleporting – any fluctuation in power that let him make a jump, and she'd almost certainly get dragged along with him… Primus forbid he merged both of them with a wall, or _each other_. Damn, would _that_ ever be a nightmare!

The strident wail of an alarm pierced the calm of the medical bay. It had a discordant, pulsatory tone that beat down like a physical pressure on the audios, and she felt Skywarp startle out of recharge behind her, his grip reflexively tightening around her.

"What-what's that noise?" he demanded.

"That's the evacuation alarm," Pulsar explained, wincing at a combination of the noise and the way he was _squeezing_. The whooping alerts were bad enough when _not_ withdrawing, it must be an incalculable number of times worse when withdrawing _and _hallucinating. "That must mean Thundercracker's found what's in the walls, right?"

"…get out, get out," Skywarp mumbled, shakily, jittering and shooting his gaze around the small room, as if looking for an exit. "We've got to get _out_…! Can't leave us here, can't, can't-! Pulse, get us out!"

"They're not going to leave us here, and we've got to wait for someone to come along and release the field," she lied, not wanting to have to be the only one helping him evacuate the building. _Primus, I hope they remember we're in here!_ "As soon as someone comes along, we'll get out, all right?"

0o0o0o0o0

Starscream's hastily-rigged replication program on the tabletop _Vinculum _had worked perfectly. The small container of Basic had shimmered very briefly with a pale blue effervescence as the fractals rewrote, and when he finally removed the cube from the outlet port – gingerly, as if it might bite him – the palmtop analyser confirmed it contained an "unknown" Blue variant that just happened to perfectly match the same unknown in the half-cube of Crisis. He studied the new, pale violet-blue Crisis for only a moment or two before setting the supercomputer going to make a second cube, trying to ignore exactly _what_ he was doing.

Skywarp was quivering animatedly when Starscream finally managed to navigate his way through the corridors and around the scurrying crowds of frightened constables up to the medical suite. The teleport gave him a beseeching look out of optics that burned bright as fever, and almost completely flattened Pulsar in his effort to jump up and run; she managed by some miracle to keep him back long enough for Starscream to slip past the glass and fasten it securely behind himself.

"No, _no_, nonono, let me out, let me _out_!" Skywarp pleaded, pathetically, and had done three full lengths up and down the glass like a captured animal before Starscream managed to catch him again. Fright had turned vague twitches into full body shakes, and it was a bit like trying to keep hold of an agitated pneumatic road drill.

"Okay, Warp, easy does it," Starscream soothed, and actually managed to get his shuddering wingmate to settle back onto the bunk. "We're going to get you out, but you need to take your medicine first."

"Medicine-…" Skywarp took the cube, quietly. "Ugh. Do I have to? Makes me see things."

"I know, but you won't need it much longer." Starscream watched carefully as the teleport obediently took half a cube before pulling a face and handing it back.

"Can we get out of here, now?" Pulsar wondered, quietly – she was still shaking, and now Skywarp wasn't making her vibrate it was obvious _she_ was withdrawing as well.

"Here," Starscream glared and offered the remaining half cube to her.

"I'm all right-"

"Take the damn cube already," he barked, and she jumped. "If you're going to stay and help me keep an eye on Warp while TC is busy, I want you as lucid as possible. All right?"

"What happens when we run out?"

Starscream winced and looked away. "Eh, well, we probably won't do that. _I_ made that, and there's plenty more in my subspace."

She stopped dead, clutching the cube halfway to her mouth. "What?!"

"It's not exactly difficult to replicate if you have the computing power to do it," he defended himself, lifting his chin, belligerently. "Just take your damn medicine, so we can get out of here."

She made a face, but sipped warily at the cube anyway.

"Come on, Skywarp. Hup," Starscream instructed, and gathered the teleport up off the berth.

"We leaving now?" Skywarp wondered, dreamily, dragging his feet.

"Yes, we're heading out," Starscream confirmed, watching as Pulsar slipped herself under Skywarp's arm on the opposite and jacked him up just enough to get his feet flat on the floor. "Away from all these walls you don't like."

"Ah, good, good," Skywarp skidded his heels but managed to keep his thrusters underneath him. "Away from the noise as well. Don't like it here."

"Is it really that bad?" Pulsar whispered, peering round the teleport.

Starscream gave her a look. "Well, we've found twenty-six, so far, so you could say yes, it's that bad," he agreed, dryly.

"Twenty-six _what_?"

"Twenty-six of Cali's leaving presents. For someone who acted so friendly, she certainly has a sting in her tail, doesn't she?"

"Yeah, but what _are_ they?"

"I'm not going to shout so a certain person can hear and work himself into another panic," Starscream growled, pointing at Skywarp and moving hastily back out of the way of a small gang of officers sprinting in the opposite direction. "Especially when we're so close to the margin between overloading his teleport capability with excess mass, and him successfully jumping. I don't want to see if unnerving him gives him just enough spark to teleport all three of us, especially since we've not been able to find that portable baffle that'll keep him down here. So… let's just say… Cali's devices will make a very loud noise and make everything shake, if we can't unplug them."

The significance apparently bypassed Skywarp's current powers of interpretation quite neatly, but it gave the grav-cycle under his arm quite a kick in the power regulator. "_Primus-_! You mean she left-" she swallowed the words before she could blurt them out loudly enough for Skywarp to hear.

"_Exactly_. Starting to get the idea why everyone's running around like headless fleshies, now?"

0o0o0o0o0

Time was getting very short. Up in the original corridor, Thundercracker and Hardline had been joined by the current 'bomb disposal team' – now made up of Prowl and Jazz, since the previous team had apparently gone AWOL some vorns ago and no-one had thought to replace them – but in spite of all the expertise on hand, a quick solution was still not particularly forthcoming. The general thought was clearly 'if only we had a few cycles more', but everyone thankfully had the sense not to risk all his peers' ire by actually saying it.

"If they're all like this one, like the report suggests, they're all tied into the grid," Thundercracker noted. "If we kill the grid, we'll kill the timers."

"Surely that'll set them all off," Prowl complained, darkly.

"Perhaps," Thundercracker was fiddling with the wiring in the back of the device, trying to tease the individual wires apart enough to see how it connected up. "But if we kill the timers, maybe we'll force them into dormancy. Right?"

"That is _far _too simplistic a solution!" Prowl argued. "A scientist with Calibrator's ability would hardly have elected to install a device you could switch off just by cutting its power!"

"Well, I don't know about you, but I've found that some of the smartest machines also have the least common sense – naming no names, of course," Thundercracker observed, clearly referring to his absentee wingmate. "It might be _such_ a simplistic solution that she never even considered it. Or maybe was hoping that _we'd_ think it was something she'd never considered."

"Regardless of whether or not it's logical, we've got under a cycle left, and we're not going to be able to work out how to manually deactivate them all in that time," Jazz agreed, softly, unexpectedly taking the Decepticon's line in favour of Prowl's. "We may even have missed one or two. We've got to do a blanket shutdown, or nothing. It might mean the place goes up, but equally, if we try and manually deactivate them all in sequence, we're pretty _guaranteed_ an explosion."

Hardline nodded, tiredly. "All right. Time for talking has pretty much run out. Is the building evacuated?" he asked, quietly, arms folded.

"As far as we can make it," Prowl confirmed, with a nod. "If anyone's still hiding in here, there's not much else we can do for them."

"Fair enough," the chief inspector pursed his lips. "You three grab your colleagues and get out. I'm going to flip the switch."

All three just stared at him, for a second.

"But that's suicide," Jazz argued, flatly. "Can't we rig some sort of remote to do that?"

"Do we even know what sort of safe distance we should have evacuated to?" Prowl added.

"What if I don't, and the place goes up anyway?" The riot tank had a resigned half-smile on his face. "Let's face it, even if we had enough specialists to unplug all of these little gadgets before one sets all the rest off, sod's law says we'd have missed one. There's no time for remotes, or anything fancy…" he sighed. "Just enough time for one big dumb machine with just enough power to throw the switch. And none of you scrawny little things would survive the blast, if you were still in here." He smiled, tiredly. "If I'm going to go asking someone to risk their life, it's only fair I get first dibs at it." He gestured with both big hands towards the doorway. "Go on, clear out, the lot of you. I'm not going to spoil this weird working relationship we've got by blowing you lot up."

0o0o0o0o0

The gathering of officers in the street had attracted an audience. By the time the three mechs finally sprinted out of the main doors and up the street to the distant evacuation cordon, there was quite the concerned clustering of civilian spectators as well as Policebots, all optics glued to the station.

Skywarp was sitting on the floor close to the centre of the crowd, clinging to his long-suffering Policebot and flanked by his wingmates, staring hauntedly up at the deserted building, as if it would somehow grow legs of its own and chase him into the street. Now they were out from the subspace baffle that had kept him safe, there was no guarantee that Skywarp wouldn't try teleporting if he got spooked – but the general consensus was that he couldn't take all three of them along if he _did_ try, and that might just be enough to keep his gate generator overloaded and offline.

Forceps stood silent at the back of the small group, but it didn't take a mind-reader to know what she was thinking. Hardline's absence meant only one thing, and she'd apparently accepted his choice with the sort of silent dignity they'd come to accept from her – no pleading, no insistence that she must go in and convince him not to do it, no wailing of pleas or threats at Primus… Just a little nod of understanding when Thundercracker explained, and the agreement that much as it pained her to admit it, he probably _was _best for the job.

0o0o0o0o0

The master switch was hidden away in the upper basement, where not many machines with mischief in mind could stumble across it and plunge operations into darkness – not that one of the skinny little cycles prone to such stupidity would have been able to shift it alone, anyway. The heavy lever had been designed with so many springs and failsafes that it was too stiff for most machines to be able to even wiggle it, let alone throw it all the way into the 'off' position – but then, Hardline wasn't 'most machines'. He had the sheer brawn that with a little effort he could do it himself. _Lucky, that_.

He stood and stared at the dusty old switch for several long, agonising moments, listening to the countdown that beat quietly at the back of his mind.

_… 307 … 306 … 305 … 304 …_

_If __Thundercracker__'s right, pulling the level will kill the timers. If __Prowl'__s right, killing the timers could just set them all off en-masse_, he mused, to himself, wishing he could somehow operate it with the power of his mind alone. _Mind, if I stand here looking like some half-sparked scrapheap for much longer, they'll solve the problem for me anyway. _

_Well, I'm glad __I found you again, Sepp,_ he thought, wishing he could somehow convey the sentiment telepathically. _Even if it is only going to have been for a short time. _He carefully folded both large blue hands around the lever, and circulated cool air briefly through his venting, flushed all the stale air out. _Just wish it didn't have to end like this. _

_Primus forgive me_, he thought, grimly, closed his eyes, and threw his weight backwards-

0o0o0o0o0

The astro-seconds ticked past so slowly, it was as though time were flowing through treacle. The crowd had already gone silent, as if torn between morbid fascination and just plain cutting and running for their lives. It had already been a breem since Hardline's last communication, where he'd announced he'd got to the switch, and the wait for the inevitable was getting _agonising_. Were they even at a safe distance, here? Should they push back another mile or two?

The sign at the front flickered twice and went out, and everyone subconsciously braced themselves for a boom that might even be felt halfway around the globe. Out of the corner of his eye, Thundercracker could see that some of the little teams of constables had _physically_ clustered themselves into scared little huddles; he'd have smiled, amusedly, if not for the fact that his own fingers had tightened anxiously on Skywarp's shoulder.

The station remained still, and quiet, however, and at long last the voice came over Thundercracker's comm. "Looks like your hunch was right, Decepticon." Hardline sounded shaky with relief, but unharmed. "The timers have all gone dormant. We can unplug 'em at our leisure, so long as we've got enough torches to see by."

Starscream released Skywarp from his hold, folded his arms, and huffed, irritably. "Right, great," he hissed. "Now _how_ am I supposed to run the _Vinculums_ if they're all turned off?!"

0o0o0o0o0

The silent crowd of civilians had already grown noisy and begun to dissipate in little relieved clusters when Hardline finally emerged from the main double doors and beckoned to Celerity, who was lurking conveniently nearby. The words "roll call" and "check who's skiving off down the pub" could just about be discerned from a distance before she grinned and bobbed her head, scuttling away to get on with it.

Forceps stomped past the three Seekers and up the ramp to where her friend was giving out orders and discussing matters with Boxer; she wasn't the sort of person to fling herself bodily at him and give him a relieved hug, but then she didn't have to be. Her gruff scolding and checking him for damage was just as eloquent, and he put up with it with a patient half-smile.

"Oh, Starscream?" Hardline caught the Seekers before they vanished inside. "Found something in the basement I figured you might find useful," he observed, and dropped a smallish ring-shaped device into the puzzled blue hands.

"What's that?" Thundercracker peered over his wings.

Starscream rolled his optics, exaggeratedly. "Is it just me, or is time management an alien concept around here?" he growled, nevertheless accepting the device. "Portable baffle. Right when we _don't_ need it."

In the laboratory suite, some of the technicians had managed to scrounge up a portable generator for Starscream's precious _Vinculum_s, and there had been surprisingly few resentful grumbles that the _Decepticon_ got a source of electricity when everyone else had to do with battery powered handlamps and chemical sniffers until the devices had been removed and neutralised.

The Decontamination Tank was a hulking dark shadow in the near-lightless laboratory; the streetlamp just outside the window threw it into an unfriendly, angular relief that made it look almost like a weapon in itself.

"So where do we go from here, Screamer?" Thundercracker complained, grimly, staring at the device and waving his flashlight over it; cold metal glinted in an unfriendly way back at him. "We haven't even tested it!"

"I don't know if you're mistaking me for one of those idiot Autobot scientists whose inventions blow up as soon as you look at them," Starscream scolded, "but this is going to actually _work_."

"Yeah, yeah, I know _that. _Still," Thundercracker demurred, irritably, hands raised to indicate he hadn't meant offence. "I think we should test it, just to be sure."

"What about me?" Pulsar spoke up, quietly.

They glanced over at her, scornfully. She sat on a table just inside the doorway, with Skywarp still wrapped around her, his optics offlined, heads leaning together, but at least looking somewhat more comfortable than he had been before. The subspace baffle looked like a piece of particularly ugly, glowing jewellery around his wrist.

"What _about_ you?" Starscream challenged.

"I meant…" she fidgeted. "I'm on Crisis as well. Could you use me as a test subject?"

"Tch! You just want to make sure you get fixed," Starscream argued, darkly. "Just in case we elect to leave you damn Auto-dorks in the dust once Warp is back on his feet."

"Seriously. Getting fixed is kind of a secondary benefit. Call it… settling a debt, if you like." She lifted her nose. "I don't much like owing debts to the likes of _you _any more than _you_ like owing them to Sepp."

"It'll hardly go far towards settling accounts," Starscream sniped back. "You've dug a hole for yourself so deep you'd need a rocket pack to get out of it-"

"Eh, Screamer? Surely it's worth a shot," she heard Thundercracker murmur. "At least we'll know if your contraption works like it should."

The air commander's optics narrowed irritably, dimming to a resentful cobalt. "All right, all right, I guess it can't hurt. We'll use the blank Vinculums for now," he allowed, at last, reluctantly. "That way if it doesn't work properly, we'll still have our backup fake-Skywarp to tweak the program on. Well, come here, then, it won't work if you stay sat over there!" He beckoned with a sharp little flick of his hand.

Skywarp whined faintly and hugged his own knees, watching as they helped the Policebot clamber unsteadily into the device. "Not in the box," he said, quietly, mostly to himself. "Not in the box…!"

"You know, I hope _that's _not going to be a problem," Thundercracker murmured, gesturing backwards at his ill wingmate. "Are we even going to be able to get him to sit still long enough for this to work?"

"We'll jump that hurdle when we get to it," Starscream replied, dryly. "If we have to offline him first, then that's just what we'll have to do. Come on, Squeaky, do you want to do this or not?" he directed his attention at the unnerved grav-cycle, who still hadn't settled in the box. "Lay down."

"Sorry…" she managed, awkwardly. The inner surface had been inlaid with protective memory foam, and it _could_ have looked a little like an enclosed recharge berth if not for the coolant rig and bristling array of pickups all around the inner margins, looking like the mandibles of some sort of unfriendly xenoform, all glittering pale blue where they caught the light from her optics. "Just… doesn't look too friendly, in the dark. Uh… This, um… this isn't going to hurt, is it?" she asked, quietly, catching Starscream's wrist as he went to make the connections.

"I don't know," he replied, honestly, and gave her a look. "I've never tested it, remember?" His lip curled. "Why, want to rethink your noble self-sacrifice?"

She released his wrist. "No. No, you need a test subject," she backed down, reluctantly. "I said I'd help."

"Iii… guess it wouldn't hurt to give you a shot of sedative," Starscream offered, unexpectedly, albeit accompanied by the sort of face that made him look like he was taking a pair of bolt-cutters to some sort of sensitive portion of his anatomy. "Sit tight. I'm sure I have some Virathesis around here somewhere…"

Her last vision before stasis finally claimed her was of three pairs of optics in the mostly darkness, watching her own fade out, and the echoing question/answer of _will it work?/I honestly have no idea_…

0o0o0o0o0

Even with all the serial _Vinculum_s, the actual decontamination program was not a quick one – quite the opposite. It'd take at least a cycle or two to chase down all the rogue fractals and delete them safely, and probably another cycle to patch the gaps back up and repair any basal defects… and that was on a machine that had _not_, so far as they'd been able to tell, overdosed at any point. Skywarp's abused cortex would probably take a full orn to clean up and repair, if not more.

…Unfortunately, the well-programmed Tank pretty much ran itself, leaving Starscream empty-handed and in need of something to occupy his own processors. He'd fidgeted and paced for a breem or two before landing his attention squarely back on Skywarp and dragging him away to the office down the corridor to get a look at what sort of state his processors were in.

Thundercracker had already been busy running cables down the hallway from the generator, planning on getting some time for recharge, but Starscream got to the hookups first, and had wired them into the main computer before his friend realised what was happening.

"Hey, _hey!_" Thundercracker glared, hands on hips. "That was _mine_, you glitch! I've not had the time to recharge properly in orns-!"

"You make it sound like the rest of us _have_." Starscream waved him off, parking Skywarp on a table. "If it had slipped your notice, we've _all _been busy. You'll get your chance later. Make yourself useful and help Winnower get the second suite of supercomputers ready."

Thundercracker huffed, quietly, but turned obediently away. "…fragger."

On his table, Skywarp sat patiently under the analysis hood, and watched dreamily as kaleidoscoping colours flashed up on the large screen in front of him. "Pretty," he observed, head perked to one side.

Starscream stared wordlessly at the display for a second or two, barely believing what he was seeing.

The diagram was a pictorial representation of Skywarp's processors - colour coded, weighted for power with different saturations and luminance... The Blue fractals had curled and twisted their way through every single layer of programming, like a luridly coloured malignant fungus – all the way from his basal systems and up through the psychological and cognitive functions… and there was a lot of it. It'd leave great big _holes_ in his psyche if they just flat deleted it…

...he leaped for his communicator.


	29. Chapter 29

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Twenty-Nine**

**Disclaimer: **As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. (...Except where they're obviously OCs, which Hasbro would be silly to want to claim.)

**A/N:** I humbly, _humbly_ apologise for this chapter. I seem to have turned into a horrible scary fangirl, oh noes. :( (Should I promise not to make a habit of this? It just kinda happened… I probably ought to deny any responsibility. They made me do it!)

Yeah, this is a sorta mondo-quick update because this is actually the second half of what I hadn't quiiite finished enough to post on Monday – and let's face it, it'd have been a _heouge_ chapter if I'd stuck it on the end of chapter 28.

Anyway. If you want to avoid the fangirlspasm, you can probably stop at "an elite _what_, exactly?"

All right I'll shut up before my author's notes end up longer than the chapter. :skips off:

* * *

"_TC, stop._"

The command was so short, so curt, that Thundercracker halfway thought he must have imagined it. "Say again, Starscream? We're just about to get the Tank ready-"

"_Just STOP them!_" That time, the sheer panicky fear in his friend's voice carried perfectly. "_Stop them, now!_"

"Guys? Guys! Hang about, a minute-" Thundercracker startled forwards, as if stung, and waved his hands. "Just… stop. Stop."

"What?" Winnower gave him a look. "Don't we need to-"

"Yeah, we need to get it ready, but Starscream says to wait a minute." Thundercracker watched as the rest of the tools got hesitantly replaced onto worktops. "I think he might have found a problem."

"_How far did they get, have they deleted anything?_" Starscream demanded. "_Have they wiped anything at all?_"

"No, nothing. Why, Screamer? What's the big deal?"

Starscream was silent for a moment or two, and when he spoke again he sounded shaky but relieved. "_I had the foresight to scan Warp before I sent him down to you_," he explained. "_Might not feel like it when I tell you what I found, but it was the biggest stroke of damn luck I've had in orns_." There was a shuddery sigh. "_The Crisis has wiped out a good quarter of his programming, TC. If we work on deleting the fractals, he'll still be a psychological cripple_."

Thundercracker felt something spasm inside him, shocked. "Primus-! Is it fixable?"

"_I hope – I think so!_" Starscream actually laughed – nervous, but relieved. "_Remember I was using Warp as my test model? I have a backup of his brain, pre-overdose, in the _Vinculums_. If we work things right, we can patch all the gaps with it._" He gave another relieved little sighing _haah-_laugh. "_Until now I never paid any attention to that old saying, Primus watches over sparklings and idiots, but I guess I'll pay it a little more heed in future! There's no way Skywarp has got this far and survived this much without __some__ form of divine intervention!_"

0o0o0o0o0

For some time, Pulsar had been half-awake, watching the technicians scurry about in the hazy half-light outside the Tank. The first breem or so of wakefulness had been uncomfortable, bathed in thick coolant vapours that frosted against her vents and made her pumps jitter, but the high-smelling vapours had vented off quite quickly once the system recognised she was no longer in full stasis.

She lay and dozed peacefully for a little while. Dreaming wasn't something most Cybertronians did, and the concept was quite alien to her, but faulty memory records weren't, and it looked like she was going to get a dreamlike "directed defragment" of all her badly-structured memory records before the program had completed. It was an interesting experience – almost like gentle, sleepy hallucinations. She knew she was awake, and knew that what she was _seeing_, what she was _experiencing_, wasn't real, but it certainly all _felt_ real, in this stew of mis-remembered voices, shifting blue light, and the shadows of wings. Quite a disproportionate number of wings, actually! And familiar purple triangles… She tried to dismiss it as just her unconscious mind's way of implying she'd like the power of flight, but deep in her subconscious she already knew that dreams of _flying_ were a pretty strange thing to have when the idea of heights alone nearly made her overheat with alarm. (Of course, it didn't take much to work out what it all _actually_ meant, but she figured if she ignored it, it would go away.)

She noticed that one of the sets of wings had a lot more solidity than the rest of the dark phantoms, and after a moment or two she realised that it was the _real_ Thundercracker, watching her with a bored _any-time-you're-ready_… expression on his face.

She stared sleepily up at him; now they'd rigged up some lighting and he wasn't quite such a hard-edged crimson-tinged blot of shadow, he didn't look half as ghoulish. "Hello," she said, not quite yet dredging up the strength to do anything else.

"You back with us again?" Thundercracker offered a hand to help her up. "Everything operating properly?"

There was an instant of woozy bandy-leggedness as she got up faster than her newly recalibrated gyros could compensate for, but the world soon steadied back out, and – more importantly – even after her long period with no Blue, _she wasn't shaking_. "Seems good so far," she confirmed, relievedly, accepting a heat-regulating foil blanket from Winnower. "Just give me a little longer to check everything's calibrated properly…"

"Check away." The Seeker released her arm once he was sure she wasn't about to fall over on him. "Let Winn know if there's anything off. I need to go round up Skywarp from the next office."

Skywarp had already looked up expectantly at the sound of footsteps. He had a sleepy look about him, and Thundercracker couldn't help wondering if Starscream had slipped him a sedative of some sort. Giving him Blue when they were about to try and _remove_ it seemed counter-productive.

"Come on, Warpy. We're going to fix your brain, now," Thundercracker explained, helping him down to the floor, watching Starscream echo the gesture at the other side so Skywarp was between them.

"Fix my brain…?" Skywarp asked, dreamily, half-walking half-dragged between his wingmates. "That'd be nice. I don't like being stupid."

"Eh, steady, now, Warp," Starscream corrected, amusedly. "There's a limit to what I can achieve, here…!"

"Yeah, but you're _brilliant,_" Skywarp reminded, waggling a threatening finger, lurching his feet against the floor but not really helping them. "I bet you could do _any_thing."

"Come on, now you're definitely talking nonsense," Thundercracker teased, and thumbed his nose at Starscream's resentful glare.

"Seriously! You could make me _all kinds_ of clever," Skywarp insisted, finally giving up entirely on actually attempting to walk. "Then you won't have to complain that I'm stupid any more."

"All right, well, maybe we'll consider that later," Starscream lied. "First, you need to take a little nap so we can get you fixed in the first place."

Skywarp followed the line of his wingmate's gaze, and subjected the Tank to an astro-second of scrutiny before noticing the lid. A hinged glass lid that was easy to see out of, but still. _A lid_. He put the brakes on, completely freezing up, fingers tightening into a vicelike grip on Thundercracker's upper arm.

"Warp? You all right?" the blue Seeker wondered, anxiously.

"You said _fix,_ not put me in a box! I'm not that broken that you have to get rid of me, I promise! I won't let you put me in there-!" Skywarp was resisting them quite spiritedly, now, trying to back off. "Not in a box, not in the dark-… you can't make me!"

"It's not a box, Warp," Thundercracker tried to reassure, coaxing him closer. "Just a… big tray. Easy to get out of, easy to see out of…"

"But it has a lid! It's gotta be-… Don't close the lid," Skywarp insisted, softly, his arms propping stiffly across the top of the Tank. "Don't, don't…"

"What? You'll overheat if I can't close the refrigerant loop," Starscream explained, trying to pry one set of purple fingers from their deathgrip on the top of the device. "Just… stop fragging about. Do you want to get fixed or not?"

"Don't close the lid," Skywarp pleaded, clinging weakly to the rim of the tank.

"Look, it's a glass lid," Thundercracker soothed, waving an arm on the opposite side of the glass to demonstrate it was clear. "And Screamer won't do anything to damage you."

"I don't. Want. The lid. Shut," Skywarp repeated, and he sounded worryingly pathetic.

Still wrapped in her heat-regulating blanket, Pulsar leaned closer to Thundercracker and murmured something into his audios. "Really?" The blue Seeker made a dismayed face, and nodded. "Eh, Screamer? Look, maybe… maybe we _could _probably get away with leaving the lid open this once?"

"What?" Starscream glared. "Do you want me to explain in detail how this damn thing works, again? I need his cortex to be operating at maximal efficiency, which means I need him _cold_."

"So we'll just have to waste refrigerant, all right? We can't shut him in."

"He's going to be _unconscious_, for crying out loud!"

"Just work with me for once, Screamer?" Thundercracker leaned closer, and added, in an almost conspiratorial whisper; "We can close the lid once we've knocked him out, but we'll never get him into it in the first place if he thinks we're going to shut him in."

"Argh. All right." Starscream threw his arms up in a gesture akin to despair. "Skywarp? In. We won't close the lid."

"You'll stay here with me too, right?" the teleport added, halting yet again, one foot in the tank and one foot on the floor outside.

"Yes, we'll stay here," Starscream reassured, resignedly, carefully peeling apart layers of armour to get to a small access port at the side of the dark Seeker's neck, and giving him a sneaky shot of Virathesis to get him fully sedated before the decontamination program kicked in and took over. "Come on, sit down before you fall down…"

Thundercracker waited until his wingmate was securely hooked up to the mainframe and deep in stasis before leaning closer to Starscream and murmuring quietly to him. The look of outraged disgust that pinched the red Seeker's features told Pulsar exactly what information had just been passed on.

"_They did __what__ to him?_" The hiss was barely audible, but there was no denying the unadulterated fury in it. "I _swear_," Starscream went on, a little more loudly, stabbing commands into the primary _Vinculum _so viciously it was like he was trying to drive his fingers right through the control panel. "If those Pit-spawned half-smelted excuses for spare parts get out of this alive after everything they've done to us, it'll be by pure dumb luck _alone_."

0o0o0o0o0

As predicted, Skywarp's brutalised cortex took a long time to carefully piece back together. The flurry of red lights on the control board almost sent Starscream into a paroxysm of stressed arm-waving, but the bright diodes rapidly began to go amber.

Pulsar settled on the worktop inside the doorway to watch, huddled in her blanket. It wasn't as if she had anything better to do – the station medic still hadn't signed her off as fit for duty, and she got the feeling that he was deliberately waiting to see how she was going to respond in the longer term to the previously untested treatment before taking responsibility for saying _yes, he agreed that she was cured_.

"You don't _have_ to hang around, you know. I'm sure you'd rather just have energon," Thundercracker reminded, some cycles later. His voice was quiet, as if leery of disturbing the Starscream-shaped hen still clucking around the decontamination computer and checking readouts. "Instead of just sit there pulling off the grid."

"I know. But I'm going to wait until Warp's better," she admitted, softly, absently smoothing folds out of her blanket, the recharge hookup set snugly into the nape of her neck.

Thundercracker rolled his optics, exaggeratedly. "Don't you think this silly Autobot nobility of yours is kinda misplaced?"

"It's not nobility," she argued. "I just want to make sure he's okay so I don't have something else to feel guilty about."

"Doesn't massively change the sentiment, from where I'm standing," the Seeker observed, drolly. "You're still here, and don't _need_ to be."

"Unless that was your polite, evasive way of saying you want me to go away," she challenged, quietly, "then does it really matter?"

Thundercracker _pfft_-ed and waved a hand.

When all the lights on the computer had finally turned a dim green, the agitated hen resolved slowly back into a dozy Starscream, who finally allowed Thundercracker to drag him away for something to get his energy back up. Pulsar slid from her table and moved a little closer to the open Tank.

Skywarp looked like he was in that semi-conscious dreamland that she'd found herself wandering in when the bulk of the rebuild was done – fixed enough to be half awake, but mostly still crawling around in a confusing haze of semi-'dreaming' as the final defragment took place. She settled up against the exterior of the Tank to wait for him to come around, perching her aft on the kick-stool Starscream had been busy tripping over earlier.

She'd noticed some time ago that the black paint had begun slowly scuffing away from the purple emblem on his wing, but not really paid it a lot of heed, until now. She traced a fingertip around its sharp margin, where it was gradually becoming visible again. _Decepticon. Megatron's Most Deadly. The Autobot's mortal enemy. _The words moved through her subconscious like an unfamiliar dirge. Her 'mortal enemy' had just spent the last orn or two clinging to her like a lost sparkling, and she wasn't at all sure where she stood with him, any more. Pit, she wasn't sure about _anything_, these days, not even all the things she'd been so happily convinced about for all her adult life. Even the inappropriate liaisons the rumour mill suggested she and he had been having didn't seem quite so uncomfortably outlandish.

_This can't just be residual after-effects of being intoxicated to the point of not knowing where in the Pit I was, can it?_

He finally stirred at the little touch, and she snatched her hand away before he had the chance to notice her boldness. "What are _you_ doing still hanging around?" he challenged, groggily, seeming to instinctually know who it was, but didn't seem too openly displeased to have her there.

"Waiting for you to wake up, so I can finally get some energon," she lied, casually.

"They won't let you have any until I've woken up?" One bleary crimson optic onlined to study her face.

"No, I'm just a stupid little cowardly Autobot who doesn't dare risk it until you're up and about," she corrected. "If _you_ can tolerate normal energon again, we can say I'm cured as well."

"Ha." The optic offlined again, and a half-smile played very thinly across his lips.

"And what's 'ha' supposed to mean?"

"Mm, nothing." He shook his head, trying to culture an air of innocence, but the tired smirk on his face was enough to say he saw it as a victory of some sort.

Pulsar stared at his feet, guiltily, leaning her chin on the arm that lay along the rim of the Tank. "Eh, Skywarp? Listen, I, uh… I know it won't go very far towards repairing diplomatic relations between us, but… I wanted to apologise."

One groggy optic came briefly online again, and studied her warily for a moment from beneath a lopsided brow before allowing it to go dim again. "Whafor?"

"Got you into this mess in the first place. I know, I know, I should have gone to get help the second they got me," she said, softly, letting an arm trail back down to trace the margin of the emblems on his wing, outlining each individual blue square. "Should have swallowed my pride and gone straight to my sergeant, or something. I just…" She hrf-ed quietly. "Half of me figured I could do it myself, and the other half was just scared witless. I mean, _you_ saw them, so you know what I mean."

He made a sniffy noise in reply. "So you're basically saying I'm the lesser of two evils? Thanks a lot, I really feel like a mould-breakingly efficient Decepticon, now," he griped, melodramatically.

The light little touch on his wing became an annoyed thump. "I can't tell you how _fantastic_ it is to know that my outpouring of genuine emotion-"

"Angst," he corrected, waggling a finger.

"-_genuine emotion_," she repeated, a little more loudly, "is all being wasted on such a 'thoughtful and respectable' mech!"

He snerked amusedly. "Pfft," he snorted, but the insult she was waiting for never actually came. "This is about as close to the front line as you've ever got, right? You little Auto-dorks in your quiet little neighbourhood where nothing ever happens. Stands to reason you'd frag it up a couple of times. And I bet you won't do it again, either. Like… teleporting in the dark. I only did _that_ the once."

"Voice of experience, is that?" She snickered in spite of herself. "How much did you lose?"

"An arm." He poked out his tongue. "Didn't jump without a good triangulation, any more."

"I thought you'd got entangled twice?"

"Hey, hey, that was a virus." He managed to fold his arms sulkily without unplugging all the connectors. "I accept no responsibility for the second time!"

She smoothed exhaust dust off his wing, absentmindedly. "This, uh… this whole big mess… won't stop us being able to finish the job here, will it?"

"Nah. And don't think we won't go back to being mortal enemies once it's over, Squeaky, just because of a bit of fluff." He gave her arm a little prod.

"Oh, absolutely. Wouldn't dream of it."

"If the pair of you are _quite_ done chatting…" a voice drawled, from the doorway, and they looked up to find Starscream with a look of long-suffering impatience on his face. "I'd like to get the final test out of the way and sign you both off as cured of everything except idiocy."

"Well, neither of us are withdrawing," Skywarp pointed out, deliberately lacing his fingers behind his helm and trying to affect an air of lazy nonchalance. "Isn't that good enough?"

"Just get your aft out of the Tank and over here, Skywarp!" Starscream scolded, making him jump and actually do as told with something like haste. "I can't be absolutely sure that you're not both just getting a hangover benefit from being on the mainframe," he confessed. "If I know you're okay with pure energon again, we'll call that proof you're clean. All right?"

Skywarp accepted the flask of energon from his friend's hand with a look something like wary distaste. "Isn't this a bit… you know," he mused, watching as his wingmate 'offered' a second flask to the wary grav-cycle (and all but shoved it square into her chest). "Overkill?"

"Not in the slightest. And I don't want any nonsense! You will both take your 'medicine' one way or another, and if I have to pour it down your intakes myself, I will," Starscream threatened, waving a hand to encompass both Skywarp and Pulsar. "You would be best served by not _arguing_ and just _doing_." He humph-ed and backed down. "Buut... TC says I should give you some room, so I'll be in the office down the corridor," he added, gruffly, going to the exit. "Come find me when you're done."

For a while, the two former addicts just stared at their fuel. Skywarp plopped himself down on a convenient stool behind a workbench and studied the flask's brushed aluminium sides, drawing a finger through the gathering condensation. "Don't you _dare _tell either of them this," he half-threatened half-confessed, in a hushed voice, "but… you know you said you sat there pulling off the grid for ages because you didn't want to find out if this hadn't worked? I'm kinda scared to do this, too, for the same reason. As in, if I put this off for long enough, it'll magically fix itself."

"I guess we should have figured it wouldn't be that easy when the Blue didn't magically go away." Pulsar settled opposite, watching him.

"Yeah. Optimism isn't always a good thing, is it? Tell you what. I'll take mine, if you take yours as well," he offered, with a halfhearted grin.

She hesitated for several long moments, and examined her own tall flask with the droplets of moisture condensing on its chilly exterior. "Together?" she suggested.

"Yeah. The whole lot. Down in one. If we don't purge it, we've got our proof, right?"

"Right. On the count of three?"

"Sounds good."

"Who'll count?"

There was a beat of silence, and he grinned, painfully. "Look, we're just trying to find subtler ways of putting this off, aren't we?" He closed his fingers around his flask. "I'll count. Three… two…" He looked up and met her gaze, and there was a flicker of something indescribable between them. "One," he murmured. "Bottoms up!"

Together, they upped flasks and drained the contents, banging the empty containers back down on the desk.

For a moment or two, there was nothing. They just stared at each other, waiting for the long, low, grinding awful sensation of pumps misreading toxicities where there were none, and-…

Then Skywarp began laughing, relief coming through like a bell in his voice, and Pulsar joined in after a moment.

"Ha! The stupid box actually _worked_," he exulted, grinning all the way from one audio vent to the other. "I have never, _ever_ been so glad Screamer's such a geek-"

Impulsively, Pulsar leaned forwards across the table, and kissed his nose.

His laughter faded, and for a second she was convinced she'd mortally wounded his pride – but he'd kept his lopsided smile. "What was that for?"

Her pumps skittered, embarrassed, and her optics burned almost white in embarrassment. "Oh, nothing, I was just-… relieved," she lied, frantically, keeping her gaze anywhere except on him just in case her optics got any hotter and burst. "Your brain's fixed, and you're not addicted any more."

"_We're _not addicted any more, don't you mean?"

"Oh, uh, yes. Of course." She glanced up from beneath hooded brows, and grinned, embarrassedly.

"Now!" He virtually _leaped _from his seat. "To the war rooms! We've got to show those _idiots_ exactly _why_ they don't tangle with the Decepticon air elite!"

"Pfft." She made a raspberry noise at him. "Haven't seen much _elite_ from you lately," she challenged, back on safe territory. "Just lots of sessions of getting your aft kicked. I mean, you're an elite _what_, exactly?"

"Tell you what…" He gave her a sly, sidelong look. "I'll _show_ you." Before Pulsar could even think to leap off her chair and away from him, he grabbed her firmly around the shoulders and-

Just plain teleporting was bad enough – Pulsar didn't think she'd ever get used to the sensation – but the shock of finding yourself two miles _straight __up_ from your previous location was an incalculable number of times worse. Especially when there was no floor under your feet. There was a pump-wrenching sensation of accelerating free-fall for an astro-second or two, as gravity rediscovered them, and her gyroscopes whirled helplessly… then his thrusters casually kicked in and falling transitioned smoothly into flying.

She gave a squeak of alarm anyway, only just resisting the urge to bleep her sirens. "Primus alive-!" She yelped, and affixed herself as tightly as possible to his torso. "We're so high up _ohhh Primus _we're so high up-!"

"I know. Isn't it fantastic?" He grinned, wickedly. He'd spent the last orn or so clinging to her, and now she was completely powerless to do anything but cling to _him_ for dear life. "Whee. To misquote an old friend… power dynamic: _reversed_."

"This is _not_ funny," she squeaked, trying to keep her vocaliser from offlining altogether, hooking her ankles up around his legs for a bit of additional hold. "Take us back down _now_."

"Aw, but it's nice up here," he argued, dismissively, chasing a jetstream. "All that fresh cool air, all that _freedom_…"

"Look, I don't care how nice _you _think it is, I don't like it up here!" she ground out, optics offlined. "Please… take us down?"

"How can you not like it up here?" he coaxed, sounding genuinely confused and amused in equal proportions. "It's a fantastic view. Just take a quick look-!"

"I'd rather not."

"In all those vorns you've never even _once _seen your world from this angle."

"And I don't really want to! I can get holograms, I can look at still pictures, I don't need to _experience_ being in the stratosphere to know what it looks like!"

"You really honestly truly don't like it up here?" He sounded like he was having trouble grasping the concept. "Why not? The sky is the only place to be! There's nowhere you can't go, you're not restricted to moving in two dimensions… How can you not like this?"

"Well, that great big chunk of nothing separating me and the ground has something to do with it," she gritted out, involuntarily tightening her grip at the reminder. "The sudden stop at the end isn't too appealing, either."

"Oh, psh! It's not like I'm going to drop you," he scoffed. "Even if I did, I could catch you again easily enough. One of the perks of being able to accelerate faster than gravity!"

"Was that supposed to be reassuring? Because yy_eep-_!" She tightened her grip and resisted the need to squeal in alarm as he tumbled into a little roll with a crosswind. "Your 'bedside manner' could do with a bit of work!" she finished. "Come on, please, this isn't fair!"

"All the little boxes I've been put in lately because of my association with you Auto-dorks, and you have the cheek to lecture me on fairness?" he teased, poking his tongue out.

"But I didn't put you in them!" She chanced a tiny glimpse out of the corner of her optic and noticed they were even higher than they had been before. _Oh sweet Primus, he's going to take me right into orbit at this rate. _"Please. Let me down _now_, Skywarp," she threatened, half-heartedly, unable to keep the quaver out of her voice. "I kept your claustrophobia a secret, the least you can do is not capitalise on my acrophobia!"

"Aw, you sure you want down? I mean, we're still kinda high up, but… okay." He relaxed his arms. "See you at the bottom!"

She felt herself sliding and shrieked in his audio, involuntarily, clutching tighter.

He grinned. There had been a flicker of guilt at teasing her, but only a flicker. "Hm, you changed your mind pretty quick, didn't you?"

_Got to convince him somehow. If I make it too hard for him to stay airborne, he'll __have__ to land. _She put out a hand, concentrating on convincing her brain they were only a few metres up, and stroked her fingertips lightly down his wing.

Skywarp made a funny sound and actually _stalled_, dropped a good few body lengths before regaining control. "Hey, _hey_! Don't _do_ that!" he scolded. "Unless you _want_ me to fall out of the sky!"

"Sorry, I thought you were _the elite_," she teased, amused at his discomfort in spite of her alarm at the fall. "If you can't even handle a little touch like _this_..." She traced her fingertips down a joint in his armour, where his wings attached to his sides, and felt him _twitch_. His wings vibrated very, _very_ subtly, and a flash of turbulence ran through him, nose to thrusters. "Maybe you better take me back to land, just in case."

"Oh, I _see…_ This is _war,_ is it?" he purred softly into her audio. "You might want to stop doing that."

"Why?" she challenged, boldly, still pursuing her fingers down the sensitive joint she'd found. It was nice to get a little bit of power back on her side – he had her at his mercy, right up in the stratosphere where the frost had begun to twinkle on their derma, so it was nice to know she still had a little power over _him_ in return. "I like knowing I can make you _squirm_. Why should I stop?"

He lowered his voice to an even softer murmur, almost drowned out by the soft thunder of his engines. "Because strike is always followed by counter-strike, in a war."

Her fingertips hesitated. "What does _that _mean?" she wondered, warily, glancing sideways and meeting the sneaky, subdued crimson optics.

His lips curled in a half-smirk, and he dipped his face to blow warm air gently across her throat. After the intense chill of the upper atmosphere, if felt like he'd just washed her in flames.

"-aigh-!" She jerked against him, surprised. "What was-… don't do that-!"

"Oh, I'm sorry – I thought you just declared war on me," he smoothed, innocently, rolling gracefully to coast on his back, changing his grip and teasing his fingers just down her torso until he found the slight ridge of the fracture there. "Maybe you just have a thing about this sort of inappropriate aerial contact."

She managed a funny, strangulated little noise and twitched as his fingertips mapped out the curve of the fault; it hurt, but _damn- _she felt herself leaning involuntarily into the touch. "Cut that out," she instructed, shakily.

"Uh-uh. All's fair in war," he misquoted, amusedly, ignoring the instruction.

"I think you'll find the saying goes all's fair in _love _and war," she corrected, trying not to squirm. "You trying to tell me something, Skywarp?"

"Me? One of the Decepticon elite?" He placed the fingers of his free hand against his chest, innocently – and watched with a curious amusement as she completely ignored the fact he wasn't actually holding onto her any more, just relying on gravity to keep her against him. "Hardly. Maybe you're just trying to read something _you_ want into this whole situation."

"Ha! Don't you think for even one moment that all this mess means we've somehow become _friends_," she snapped, shakily.

"Like I'd make _that_ sort of mistake," he replied, in an amused sneer, but his fingers were still chasing a firm, investigative path along that old fracture in her torso. It hurt, but it made her squirm against him, too; her fingers made little clawing motions against his upside-down wings, drew thin marks through the frost that was accumulating. "Just face it. You're not gonna win, Squeaky," he whispered softly into her audio. "Better capitulate now. I might even take you back down, if you talk to me nicely."

"Ohhh no… this… isn't over…!" She huffed warm air from her vents. "Just one successful strike doesn't-… ahhh, _Primus_-!" He'd rolled his optics and let his other hand join in teasing on the opposite side. It was getting difficult to free up the processor space needed for thinking. "Doesn't win a war!" she strangled the words out in a rush.

"Oh come on. Look at you. You're so _beaten_ already, and you don't have anything left in your subspace that you could _shock_ me with," he snerked, cruising lightly. "Silly inexperienced little Auto-dork. It's really no contest, any more!"

"Actually, I have one last thing," she retorted, softly, and matched glares with him for half a moment, before closing the last inches between them and stopping his mouth with a kiss – an angry, hard, _teach-you-a-damn-lesson_ sort of gesture, closer to a bite than anything affectionate. She felt his hands tense against her, and another of those flashes of turbulence, a brief startled sputtering of engines and something like an instant of freefall-

She was gratified by the look of startled shock on his face for the briefest of astro-seconds after they parted, but it didn't last. He gave a brief, hooting laugh, added the trick to his arsenal, and returned her gesture.

* * *

**A/N: **All right, you can all hit me now. :runs away!:


	30. Chapter 30

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Thirty**

**Disclaimer: **As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. (...Except where they're obviously OCs, which Hasbro would be silly to want to claim.)

**A/N: **Thanks again to all my lovely reviewers. I'm glad most people didn't think that last bit was too over-done... (If I scared anyone off, I apologise... ;) ) Right now, I'm kinda letting the characters tell me where they want to go, so… we'll see what happens.

Annnd… we're almost back on safe territory! Phew! ;)

* * *

It took some time to make their way back indoors, after Skywarp had finally (unsteadily) landed – although it would probably have been quicker had one or the other not decided to attempt to even the score every few steps (albeit only half-heartedly from the smaller party). A trail of paint transfers followed them all the way, on walls and buildings and benches and refuse carts and-…

They sneaked in through the back doors, snickering nervously like misbehaving schoolchildren, hoping to skirt unnoticed past most optics that might be watching. Walking in through the front doors together would be tempting fate just a little _too_ comprehensively, especially if Whisper was on duty at the desk. Trying to swear _him_ to secrecy would be the biggest exercise in futility _ever_.

Nightsun was just coming back from the cell block - probably assessing whether he thought Whitesides was a suitable candidate for decontamination - when they finally got through the doors. "Oh. Hello, you two," he greeted, looking a little perplexed. "I hadn't realised you were both up and about again. Feeling better, I assume?"

They just swapped looks and laughed nervously.

Nightsun arched a brow, then something apparently clicked and he rolled his optics, instead. "By the way, Pulse…" He gently steered the constable round in a half-circle, so her back was to the mirrored door. "You might want to take a little trip to the washracks before you do anything else," he suggested, with an amused smile, watching as her optics flushed a vivid embarrassed cyan at seeing the purple smudges at the small of her back. "Before anyone asks you any difficult questions!"

"You _git_!" she rounded on Skywarp. "You did that on purpose!"

Skywarp was the very picture of innocence. "Oh, come now. _Would_ I do such a thing?" He looked openly shocked at the insinuation.

"Yes, you would!"

His expression became more than a little lascivious. "I tell you what, how about I help you polish them out?"

She gave him a shove. "How about _no thanks_?" she snapped, although a little voice inside her disagreed. _Oh Primus, __please__. _"You've done more than enough for one day." 

"Ha. See you 'round, then, Squeaky." He thumbed his nose at her and waggled his fingers, before sauntering away in the opposite direction.

She watched him go, wistfully. _Should have said yes. __That__ would have got them all talking…!_

"You be careful how you play this, Pulse," a voice said gently into her audio, and she glanced sideways to find Nightsun watching her with soft, concerned optics. "Don't let yourself forget what he is."

"I haven't forgotten," she reassured, trying to ignore the reluctance deep inside her. She hadn't _forgotten_, although she _wanted_ to. "He's… well, he's just-… " She waved a hand, trying to conjure up the description she wanted.

"He's still a Decepticon," Nightsun filled in the blanks for her. "The fact he's too busy with Blue right now to fight _us _doesn't mean he's renounced his faction altogether. Once this is over, we may all have to beat a hasty retreat."

"Do you think it's a bad thing?" she wondered, quietly. "To wish he was one of us?"

"A _bad_ thing?" Nightsun echoed. "I don't think so. A little optimism didn't hurt anyone, and who knows what the future will bring." He lifted a cautionary finger. "Whether it's _healthy_ to get too hung up on the idea is another matter entirely."

She looked askance at him, then back at the floor. "Voice of sanity, as ever," she grumbled, without much conviction. "I guess I'll go get myself cleaned up before the rampaging masses want to fight me for the washracks."

"Sounds like a good idea." He gave her shoulder an affectionate pat. "You'll have a little privacy for a while, your roommates are all still busy clearing out the remainder of Cali's leaving presents."

As Nightsun had suggested, her shared room in the dormitory block was empty. She'd never been quite so relieved to get her head under the shower before… a bit of solvent loosened the surface dust, and the sonic agitator vibrated off the rest of the stuck-on dirt from her derma and the seams between her plating. A quick spritz of water and most of the grit was safely down the drains.

The paint transfers were going to be trickier – she'd spent all her time wracking her brain for a good non-incriminating excuse and really couldn't come up with anything that wouldn't get people looking at her strangely, so the smudges all had to come out. _He _so_ did that on purpose!_ A bit of abrasive powder then re-polishing would do it-

Her insides were still all kinked up in their self-protective layouts, but she wasn't really sure whether it had been _him_ or those unbelievable _heights_ that had done it. She leaned harder against the polishing wheel, and tried to use the sensation to buff the knots out of her insides as well; it didn't take too much to imagine it wasn't just an inanimate tool but someone's hands-… _Primus, you can cut __that__ out! _she scolded, inwardly. _Irrepressible letch-_

The flurry of banging disturbed her daydreams. "_Hey, _Glitchy, are you _gonna_ come out of there this vorn, or what?" a voice demanded, through the door. "Some of us have been doing some actual _work _all day and kinda want to get cleaned up!"

_Peace: shattered._ She sighed and cast her gaze skywards. Like Whitesides, Longbeam was another of her dorm-mates, who she'd shared with since college. Unlike Whitesides, she'd never been particularly _close_ to her fellow femme – too close in personality, which had always led to dramatic clashes of opinion – and Longbeam was as pure-sparked as they came, so she'd be pretty guaranteed to disapprove of this latest… Seeker-based… development. Speaking of which, what was she even supposed to _call_ this mess? Certainly wasn't anything particularly _normal_…

Stepping out of the washroom was almost like walking into a mirror – Longbeam was standing just outside the door, her arms folded and her head canted over to one side with an impatient glower crimping her lips into a pout. She was the same model as Pulsar, and identical except for the paler face and yellow cheek-flashes, and slightly leggier build – actually a fault, but something which she was ridiculously proud of, because it made her a little different to everyone else. "_You _sure took your sweet time in there," she griped, pushing past and leaving dirty fingermarks on the doorframe. "What were you doing, anyway, getting a whole new paintjob?" The door _clunked_ closed behind her. "You better not have pinched the last of the detergent either," the accusation filtered mutedly through the heavy alloy, but thankfully that was the last comment.

Pulsar ignored her friend's griping and briefly examined her back in the mirror – not as shiny as she'd have liked, but the last of the incriminating smudges were gone, so it'd have to do – then boosted herself up to her bunk. She didn't so much feel _depleted_ as _running on vapours…_ Battling for aerial supremacy obviously required more energy than anyone let on.

She ran her thumb over the little damson-coloured scuffmark on the back of her wrist, contemplatively. _Nightsun's right. This can't end well. We all know it. So why can't I stop thinking about him?_

0o0o0o0o0

"I thought I told you," Starscream rounded on him the instant a drowsy Skywarp appeared in the doorway, "to come and report to me the very instant you were done?"

Skywarp jumped back away from his bristly wingmate, startling awake. "I-… er, forgot?" he tried, vainly.

"So you're claiming the cortex which in several thousand vorns has never betrayed you by forgetting anything has now become as reliable as the soggy programming a Squishy might have?"

"Errr… yes? Maybe it's a residual fault from being on the mainframe!" Skywarp lied, frantically, bumping against the wall. "You said yourself you didn't know what sort of after-effects it might have."

"Oh for goodness-… Just… get over here," Starscream stabbed a finger at the unoccupied stool next to the workbench, giving the teleport a martyred look. "The sooner I get a look in your brain the sooner I can confirm you're back to your normal self." He narrowed his optics, and added, just loudly enough to hear, "more's the pity."

Skywarp settled on the stool, wearing his best whipped-puppy expression, and let Starscream place the neural hood down over the back of his helm. "Sorry, Screamer," he said, quietly, hunching his shoulders. "I was kinda… distracted. Didn't mean to nark you off. I mean-… I didn't think I was ever going to be cured, and your silly box actually _worked_."

Starscream _hmm_-ed warningly, but seemed mollified by the apology. "All right, sit tight a minute. The less you're doing, the quicker I'll get an accurate reading…"

Skywarp watched remarkably quietly as the screen filled with colours – this time, lacking the fungating growth of Blue fractals. "That's a good sign, isn't it?" he commented, once the readout had flashed green lights and the little clockface had finished rotating.

"It's a good sign," Starscream confirmed, nodding. "It means the only faults now are pre-existing ones."

"Hey, I didn't _have_ any pre-existing faults!"

"_That_ is entirely a matter of opinion."

"Skywarp?" All three Seekers looked up to find Boxer in the doorway. "Are you fully recovered?"

Skywarp gave him a wary look from under his wiry hairpiece. "…mayybe."

"Good." The superintendent inclined his head. "There's going to be a meeting of senior officers in the main conference room in three breems time. We'll need your debriefing."

"My _what_?!" Skywarp demanded, the instant the Policebot was gone. "Since when do I have to do _them_?! I don't have anything useful to tell them!"

"Heh, you know, I kinda agree with you," Thundercracker quipped. "But that's just because you _never_ have anything useful to say."

"Guys, seriously. We've got to get back to the _Nemesis_," Skywarp groaned, sinking down in his seat and resting his head in his arms. "Megatron never asks me for _anything_, except to get _out_ of the damn _way_." He finished with a melodramatic but passable mimic of the tyrant's gravelly tones.

Thundercracker chuckled and patted his wings. "Cheer up, Warp. He'll only ask for you to fill everyone in about Cali and her operation, not to go into details about your own personal virility."

One optic turned his way, burning a murderous crimson. "And what is _that_ supposed to mean?" Although if his voice was anything to go by, he already knew _exactly_ what Thundercracker meant.

"Let me put it this way. I don't know if you've been here so long you've forgotten how the chain of command works," Starscream growled, "but where _I_ come from, if a commanding officer gives an order, it's usually accepted that the order will be _followed_. And if it _isn't,_ someone will take steps to find out _why_."

"What order was that?" Skywarp quirked his head over to one side.

"The one that said come and find me, once you'd satisfied yourself you were cured."

"Ohh, is _that_ what you meant?" Skywarp wondered, busily trying to culture an air of _I'm stupid, remember?_ "You said to go find you when I was done, well, I wasn't done."

"I _meant_ done finishing your energon, not done getting your end away with Squeaky," Starscream gave him a shove. "And you _know_ that was what I meant."

"Yeah, but-…" Skywarp's optics narrowed. "Hang on, wait, wait-…" He waved his hands, realising something. "How did _you two_ know-" His face visibly fell. "Aw, no, don't tell me you fol-… You fragging well _followed_ _me_?!"

Blue and crimson optics exchanged a look, and both Skywarp's trine-mates nodded in unison.

"Of course we did, after Screamer came to find you and found out you'd fragged off somewhere. I mean, to start with, that femme's still an Autobot," Thundercracker reminded. "The pair of you could have been up to _anything_. You might even have gone back to Cali! So if you're going to abduct officers-"

"Or vanish off without telling anyone where you're going when your commanding officer quite explicitly told you to report in before you did _anything_," Starscream added.

"-expect to have one or two optics turned in your direction, just to make sure you're not up to anything inappropriate," Thundercracker finished.

"So, uh-… what exactly, uh… did you see?" Skywarp's wings had already begun to drift lower.

Thundercracker swapped a look with Starscream. "Pretty much all of it, wouldn't you say, Screamer?" he lied. "Quite a show the pair of you put on."

Starscream pursed his lips, thoughtfully, and nodded. "I'd figure," he agreed, watching as Skywarp's wings gradually sagged despairingly lower and lower. "I never knew you had such _energy_ in you, Warp! Surprised you were still standing after."

Skywarp's optics blazed angrily, and more than a little embarrassedly. "Bunch of voyeurs! I should disown the lot of you!" he snapped, hunching his shoulders and trying to hike his dejected wings back up.

"You don't think we were the _only_ mechs watching, do you? Come on, Warp, we're still Decepticons, they still don't trust us. I bet Boxer sent half a dozen of his little corkscrews after you with cameras to make sure you weren't doing anything you shouldn't, once he realised the pair of you had fragged off somewhere."

Skywarp's jaw visibly sagged, in the clearest expression of _oh __shit_ they'd seen so far, and he spluttered wordlessly for a second before noticing Thundercracker's lips twitch. He was trying desperately hard not to lose control of his straight face and give it away with a smirk. Starscream hastily averted his gaze and scratched behind an audio vent when the accusing crimson stare landed on him, and the game was up.

"_You_ _half-smelted bastards!_" Skywarp leaped at Thundercracker, who just happened to be closest. "You're _lying_ to me again!"

The other two finally lost the battle against their badly-disguised amusement; even having Skywarp square on his chest and trying to use his head to make a hole in the floor didn't stop Thundercracker's great peals of laughter, and after a second or two Skywarp finally saw the funny side and cracked a tired smile of his own.

"Don't you think I'm gonna forgive you for that, you pair of fraggers," the teleport scolded, trying (but failing) to turn his grin into a sneer and giving Thundercracker one last wallop for luck before getting off him. "It was a _mean_ trick to play. And you're only jealous that I was _getting some._"

"Jealous? Hardly. We figured that since you'd become such a master at hiding stuff from us, we'd never get the truth if we just asked you. We reasoned that if you _thought_ we'd seen, you'd confirm it for us – and you did," Starscream snerked. "You're far too gullible, sometimes."

"I guess at least it proved one thing," Thundercracker reminded, cheekily, not bothering to get up. "Our little Warpy's still got it where it counts."

Skywarp _pfft_-ed and took refuge in the flask of energon Starscream had slid under his nose, but couldn't quite hide the sly, satisfied glint in his optics.

0o0o0o0o0

"I thought you'd tear me a new one," Skywarp confided, quietly, as he and Starscream followed Thundercracker to the briefing room. "I wasn't planning on it, you know. It just… well… _happened_."

Starscream shrugged, pursing his lips dismissively. "I can't say I particularly _approve_," he replied, dryly, "buut… like you're so fond of telling us, you're not a little lost sparkling who needs his hand held every step of the way. You're more than big enough and ugly enough to make your own decisions, however stupid they may be. Just let me say this now, before there can be any possible misinterpretation!" He wagged a finger. "If Megatron gets wind of it, I knew _nothing,_ and you're fielding his 'questions' on your own!"

Skywarp's features creased in a little nose-wrinkled frown. "Hn," he grumbled, non-committally. "You think he'll find out?"

"From me or TC? No. You know us better than that," Starscream reassured, and watched as the dark helm of their blue wingmate nodded in agreement. "But Shockwave has eyes and ears everywhere, and it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if he found out and passed that little gem of information on."

"…how about a little pre-emptive strike?" Skywarp wondered, with a wan smile. "If we kick his aft _really __well_…"

"…then he'll _definitely_ pass on anything he knows. Face it, Warp, you'll probably be getting some very difficult questions when we get home. For that matter…" Starscream winced, and tapped at Thundercracker's wings, indicating the chequered Police piping all three still wore. "Perhaps I should revise that and say we all will."

"Oh, you'll be able to spin it to our advantage," Thundercracker glanced back over his shoulder, and smiled, lopsidedly, nudging the door to the briefing room open. "That's your speciality, right, Screamer?"

Starscream snorted softly, non-committally, and followed him in.

Skywarp dithered in the doorway for a minute before finally slinking in. He looked supremely uncomfortable at having so many expectant pairs of optics on him – under normal circumstances, this much Autobot attention was usually as good an indicator of _about-to-get-shot-at _as any – but took his seat at the opposite end of the table to Boxer, and squared his shoulders as best he could.

"All right, I think that's everyone," the superintendent confirmed, and inclined his head. "Let's get started. Skywarp? We need to know exactly what we might be dealing with, here. Did you get a very good look at the plant?"

"Parts of it," Skywarp agreed, shifting awkwardly in his seat. "I didn't have much opportunity to look over a whole lot of it. I'm not sure whether any of it's useful."

Boxed inclined his head, patiently. "Well, we'll decide that in due course," he suggested. "What _do_ you have?"

"Er, okay, uhm… Well, I'm not sure if it's new – I mean, it sure _looks _new – but she's got this big-aft wall around the whole thing. She's started replacing the refinery pipelines inside with defensive emplacements, as well." Skywarp had been studying his fingers, but now he glanced up, a little more sure of himself. "It's _huuge_ in there," he said, grimly, spreading his palms for emphasis.

"The Codustral plant has always been quite a dominant presence in the district," Hardline confirmed. "My first patrol used to go by there, and it'd take a few breems just to make it along the front. They used to just have a chainlink fence and some laser-wire, though, and a lot of the ground was empty storage space."

"There's still some big empty bits," Skywarp agreed. "I figure maybe she's gonna put refinery towers in, they're all mapped out with circles, now."

"Will it be easy to gain entry?" Prowl wondered, from his seat opposite Celerity. "It'll make most sense to take the fight to her. If we wait for her to call the shots, she has the advantage."

"Ehh, well, the place is getting pretty well defended," Skywarp explained, grimly. "I saw some heavily reinforced gates, which looked pretty well staffed, and an electronic field baffle in place which'll stop anyone getting in over the wall. I had to wait for them to let me out, last time I visited."

"What sort of baffle? A forcefield?"

"Iii… don't really know what it is," Skywarp admitted. "It's not like anything I've seen before. It's kinda like a big EM field, I guess, although it looks like it stops remote surveillance as well, makes it look like just any old chemicals refinery – like those portable baffles her goons wear, you know?" He spread his hands. "Still, it's designed to stop machines getting in. She told me if I flew through it, it'd paralyse every signal in my mainframe, leave me helpless on the ground."

"And you trust her?"

Skywarp wrinkled his nose. "Didn't feel like experimenting, to be honest," he said, dryly. "I saw one of her technicians fall off where he was working and clip an arm against it. Lots of sparks, looked almost like he was having a fit. Didn't look like a happy mech, y'know?"

"Speaking of technicians, how many enemy operatives are we looking at?" Boxer wondered.

"Um, again, not sure," Skywarp apologised. "In terms of her more loyal operatives, there's only a very small number." He lowered his voice, and muttered, quietly, "like that big fragger of a tractor."

"Just the three we know from the news report, or are there more?"

"A few more, but not many. I don't think she trusts enough people to have more of them very close to her. I bet there's plenty of addicts willing to fight for her, though, so long as she keeps 'em well supplied with Blue. There could be a couple of hundred of _them_."

"So how are we going to get in? Engage in some sort of full-frontal assault?" Boxer looked sorely displeased at the idea. "We could spend _orns_ doing that, if she's that well defended, and we've not got so many operatives, ourselves."

Skywarp shrugged, offhand. "Well, _I _can get in with no problems," he reminded, lifting a finger. "She probably expects me to go back at some point, if I'm somehow not dead. I just don't know how easy it'll be to get anyone _else_ in."

"What?" Several pairs of optics lined back up on him. "What do you mean, you can get in?"

"I'm a teleport, remember? Duh," the dark Seeker reminded, spreading his hands.

Next to him, Starscream laughed out loud. "Ha! Because you've done it before, as well! I wasn't sure if you'd get through her baffle, the way you described it."

"It disrupts signals, but it doesn't extend far enough into subspace to mess my triangulation up. I can see where I'm going just fine," Skywarp agreed, nodding. "I just…" He paused and grumbled quietly under his breath. "I don't know what the field generator will look like. I can get in, but I won't be able to let you guys in unless I can kill the baffle. I'm sure as Pit not taking you all one-by-one, and – no offence, Hardline, but some of you are just too _fat_."

The riot tank cracked a smile, and let the insult pass. "Fair comment."

"How about you give _me_ a lift?" Jazz wondered, leaning his head onto his hand. "I'm a saboteur, remember? I'm sure the generator won't be that hard to find. Probably pretty central, and I bet it'll look like any other forcefield generator – might be an exotic field, but I'd be surprised if it has to be projected any other way than normal. Just get me in there, and I'll do my stuff while you do yours."

Boxer nodded. "That sounds like we might almost have a plan forming, here," he mused, satisfied. "Once Skywarp gets himself and Jazz into the plant, we can sit and wait for the go-ahead to hit the gates. I realise it may be tempting fate to say this, but I'm willing to bet that any addicts she ropes in to help will be poorly armed and poorly organised. If you can keep her distracted, Skywarp, we'll be inside before she realises we're there and can raise the alarm."

"Just one problem." Skywarp gave Starscream a reluctant glance. "She wants one of your null-rays, or she won't let me near her."

"What does she want one of _them_ for?" Starscream pouted, irritably. "You can just go get smelted, Warp. I'm not ripping my weapons off for this. We can do without it."

"We don't have to give her a real one," Thundercracker spoke up, softly. "She won't have it for long, if all goes to plan. Maybe not even long enough to work out we switched it. Do you think you could rig a passable fake, Winn?"

Winnower nodded. "Not me personally, but I know a mech who can."

"That's settled, then," Boxer inclined his heavy head. "Everyone better ensure they get well rested. Once we engage gears and start this thing moving, we're going to need to be at peak capacity."

"Figure we should roll out this time tomorrow?" Hardline suggested.

Boxer nodded. "Tomorrow will give us time to brief the staff and ensure everyone knows their role. Celerity, you'd better get the inspectorate together and organise your teams. The rest of you, dismissed. Get a good night's rest, because you're going to need it."

0o0o0o0o0

Starscream's trine had retreated back to his lab when Winnower's colleague finally brought the required supplies along.

"Here you are, gents," the technician greeted, waving the replica weapon in one hand. "One duplicate, inactive null-ray, as ordered. It's not much more than a shell with a few broken components and a couple of focussing crystals, but I guess it'll fool her for a while, right?"

"Ooh, that matches up nice," Skywarp observed, holding it up next to Starscream's actual cannons, half-listening as the technician headed away down the corridor to help Jazz construct a small, lightweight set of explosives. "Still needs a liiiittle bit of work though…" He dropped the replica to the floor, considered it for a moment… then stomped on it.

"What are you _doing_, Skywarp?!" Starscream leaped to snatch the replica out from under his thrusters, but Thundercracker caught him before he got there. "Do you want to sabotage us before we even leave the building?!"

Skywarp pulled a face, and spread his hands. "Come on, she'll never fall for it if we give her a pristine replica," he argued, reminding them he wasn't always so stupid as he sometimes acted. "Oh, Starscream, would you _please _be a nice chap and give me one of your weapons so I can help our enemy take over the world? Why _yes_ Skywarp, I'd be _delighted to, _here you are…" He snorted. "Got to look like I had to give poor Screamer a walloping to get it."

"I wonder exactly why she wants a null-ray?" Thundercracker mused, thoughtfully, watching as Skywarp added his artful destruction to the fake weapon. "It's not like there's a deficit of weaponry in the district, she could have her pick of devices with the money she's got."

"Well, null-rays aren't lethal," Starscream reminded. "Takeover via non-lethal means seems to be her _modus operandi_, even if her merry band of idiots don't always play by the same rulebook."

"They tried to kill _you_…"

"Hm. I wonder if that was her intention, or she originally planned to try and draw me into the team once I had no memory?"

"Huh. If you ask _me_," Skywarp interrupted, straightening with his well-dented replica null-ray, "she's just _scared_." At their puzzled looks, he elaborated; "well, think about it. She's a tiny, skinny protoform who doesn't even like going out into the streets alone, right? And everything she's done so far…" He clawed his fingertips down the barrel of the cannon and left some dramatic purple streaks. "…has been to make the place quiet, and safe. Blue makes you too sleepy to want to fight – look what it did to me and Squeaky! And null rays will let her defend herself without killing anyone. She's probably just… gone off the rails, y'know? Power's gone to her head. She can't see her original aim any more."

"Wow, Skywarp." Thundercracker sounded genuinely impressed. "That's really _deep_, for you…"

Skywarp poked out his tongue, but looked pleased with the praise.

Starscream was nodding. "Nonlethal weapons, chemical persuasion… it's almost like she's trying to turn the place into some sort of sleepy dictatorship, where she can live without being in fear for her life. I have to agree, in a way – _I_ wouldn't want to be a small, unarmed protoform in the middle of a warzone."

"You almost sound like you want to _forgive_ her," Skywarp jeered, and pulled a stupid face at him.

Starscream glared back. "_Hardly_," he replied, witheringly. "I was just observing that it made sense."

Skywarp and Thundercracker exchanged looks and nodded meaningfully at each other.

"Oh for goodness-… let's go and get a drink," Starscream half-despaired. "I know you're being quite one-track right now, Skywarp, but not _everyone_ has their thoughts on nothing but sparking off with the ladies."

Skywarp approximated a raspberry, and made _blah-blah_ faces behind his back; Thundercracker swatted him lightly around the back of the helm, and scolded amusedly.

The main galley was relatively deserted, when they arrived – there were a couple of off-duty constables finishing their rations, and an inspector who'd let himself slip into recharge in the corner, head on folded arms, but it was empty otherwise. Everyone else probably had more sense and was getting a proper night's charge, Thundercracker had mused, drolly, as the trine settled in their usual corner.

"Hope neither of you two have forgotten how to seriously kick tailfin, with all this cohabiting with the sentimental Auto-dorks," Skywarp commented, sleepily, resting his chin in his hands.

"Hope your little bondmate won't mind _you_ doing a bit of aft-kicking," Thundercracker shot back, and Skywarp pushed his elbow off the table, almost knocking the blue Seeker right over. "Well, it's a fair point! She might not want you setting a bad example for the potential sparklings!"

Even Starscream cracked a smile at that. "The resident ladies' mech will stand a better chance at getting close to Cali, I imagine, as well," he observed, dryly. "He does seem to have a way with the fairer sex, right now. How many times has she forgiven you and let you have one last chance, now?"

Thundercracker smiled lazily. "Yeah, War-py's her fa-avourite," he sing-songed. "She asked you to take her 'flying' yet, Warp?"

"What?!" Skywarp straightened up and stiffened, optics wide in horror. It was tempting to imagine that his pale face had drained even further of colour. "You think she might?!"

"Ooh, that's a 'yes' if ever I heard one."

"You two are _so_ unfair," Skywarp huffed, and sulked into folded arms, although his face hadn't quite lost that look of semi-despair. "And you wonder why I tried to keep it a secret!" There was a little friendly jostling of wings, and Skywarp's scowl relaxed into a disgruntled little half-hearted pout. "Pair of fraggers."

"More seriously, we ought to get our own heads down for the evening," Starscream suggested, relaxing back in his seat, and added, for Skywarp's benefit; "in _our own _bunks."

Skywarp poked out his tongue.

"Tomorrow is going to be hard work. We're going to go in fast, hot, and _accurate_," Starscream went on, cautioningly, waving a finger to underline the last word. "I expect everyone's weaponry to be as finely attenuated as you can get your collimators to go. We'll be so surgically precise, even Forceps will be envious. Right?"

"Right." Thundercracker nodded his agreement. "We've got our entire faction to represent, here."

"Well, fair enough, but why the big deal over precision, for once?" Skywarp groused. "If it gets the job done, does it matter? We can still look impressive."

"It matters because right this second, we're free agents. We're acting under our own direction, out from under Megatron's so-called control," Starscream replied, sneering at the tyrant's name. "We are going to show everyone that we're not a trio of air-heads who like to make a fuss. We're going to show _everyone_ why we're still the best."

"I still don't see why I have to be precise over it." Skywarp wrinkled his nose. "Precision isn't exactly my speciality."

"Look, if I have to bribe you to at least _try_, I will," Starscream commented, dryly, leaning down to the small case he'd brought with him. "To which end... I thought we could do with a celebratory drink, in anticipation."

"But we haven't done anything, yet."

"You passing up the opportunity to drink all Screamer's credits away, Warp? Don't you feel well?" Thundercracker placed a palm flat on the teleport's forehead, as if to check his temperature.

"You'll forgive me for pointing out that me and strange fuels haven't had the best working relationship, these past few orns," Skywarp reminded, softly, giving Thundercracker a look but not pushing him away. "What you got there, anyway, Screamer?"

The red Seeker smiled, sneakily, and brought out three little twinkling cubes of starlight. "A little superior grade. I smuggled it all the way from the _Flywheel _a dozen orns ago, I just haven't had the opportunity to drink it." He pushed one cube towards each of his wing-mates. "I thought my 'brothers' deserved a little payment for good work in hard conditions, for a change."

"Ooh." Skywarp sat up and examined it, curiously. "This looks a whole lot nicer than that muddy blue rubbish. You got any more, in there?"

"Yes, but if you see me going to fetch another round you have my permission to hit me," Starscream offered, unexpectedly. "I have no intention of enacting a repeat of that night it all went so horribly wrong."

"Yeah, but if it _hadn't_ gone wrong, we three wouldn't be here and soon to be engaging in such a royal aft-kicking, would we?" Skywarp pointed out, with a grin.

"Probably not." Starscream accepted, then smirked, and lifted his cube. "To us. _Still_ the best, most deadly fliers Cybertron has to offer."

"To us," came the agreement from his two wingmates, and as one the trine upped cubes and (bravely) downed the contents in one.

…a breem later, Skywarp was the only one who'd managed to stop spluttering.


	31. Chapter 31

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Thirty-One**

**Disclaimer: **As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. (...Except where they're obviously OCs, which Hasbro would be silly to want to claim.)

**A/N:** Yeah, I agree with most of you that are of the opinion it's kind of a shame the three boys are wanting to go "home", but then I've always been one for resuming the status quo (most of the way, at least!) at the end of things. So... hmm. We'll see. :)

Balrog Roike – yes, "Captain Scarlet" was spot on. ;) But not for the lost memory, it was the fact he was "indestructible" and always recovered, no matter how well-smashed-up (and dead) he was, which is sorta the same sentiment as the air commander seems to promote… (That, and I have fond memories of watching re-runs when I was younger…)

Shloop – no, just means they can't hold their drink. ;)

* * *

It was strange, what their unexpected Decepticon allies had done to the force, Boxer mused, standing off to one side of the briefing room and only half-listening to what Celerity was telling him, watching his fleet get ready to move. The large room was full, which wasn't unusual, but it was full of _excited, chattering_ officers, keen to head out, which _was_ unusual. It made a dramatic contrast to the usual grim-faced, quiet, grumbling staff he usually had to somehow rouse into enthusiasm.

If the three Seekers could (somehow) be persuaded to stay on, they'd be just what the force needed, he recognised, tiredly. Now all three fliers were pulling in the same direction, for a change, they actually came across as somewhat _effective_. Unlike usual, when Starscream usually sabotaged himself by being a little too brazen about ousting Megatron from the top spot, or Skywarp's overconfidence led him to be a little _too_ daring and get a little _too _close to the enemy, or Thundercracker's odd sentimentality over those poor little ground-bound squishy insects raised its head, and one of them ended up being the key to another defeat.

The surreality of it made him only too aware of what he was contemplating. _Decepticons, on an Autobot police force?_ Although how "Autobot" the force would remain after this had blown over was anyone's guess – he'd heard rumours that a significant number of previously-loyal Policebots might be ditching their badges and going neutral. 'We're here to uphold the law, not squabble over territory on behalf of a faction that's barely even here any more,' was a sentiment he'd heard one of the juniors chirp in the corridor.

At the side of the room, Starscream was still fussing over his weaponry, in contrast to Skywarp and Thundercracker, who'd given their systems only a cursory glance over before being satisfied. They now stood chatting, watching Starscream and making pithy comments, and the aerospace commander looked like his patience was wearing thin.

"Don't the pair of you have anything better to do than give me a running commentary?" Starscream scolded, at length. "Skywarp, take this. You'll want to get it installed before we leave," he instructed, and flicked his wrist. Something small and colourless sailed lightly through the space between them.

Skywarp plucked it lightly out of the air; it turned out to be a small polymer pouch. He eyed it, warily, and wrinkled his nose. "What's it for?"

"Well, Cali will expect you to need a top-up when you get there, correct? This'll make a physical barrier between you and the Blue, so it'll stop you getting addicted again." Starscream didn't even look up, busy checking the focusing lenses on his left cannon. "You can fake the high and the withdrawal, can't you?"

"Well, I've done it for real, enough times, I think I know the symptoms. Just one question." Skywarp waved the pouch, and affected a pained look. "Will this thing mean you've got to endoscope me again?"

"Well, you can get yourself addicted again if you like, but I imagine there'll be a heavy demand on the Tank once we're done."

"That was a 'yes', wasn't it?"

"Yes, it was."

"I hate that thing," Skywarp groused at the innocent device, but went obediently away to swallow the pouch. "TC? Gimme a hand with this…"

"Um, Commander Starscream?" The red Seeker didn't even bother to look up; it was only the desk sergeant in the doorway, straining to make his harsh little croaky voice heard over the excited hubbub. "You have a visitor? Sir? Can you hear-… Oh, just-…" Whisper directed his attention at the visitor. "Never mind, just go on in. Never gonna be heard over this noisy bunch of idiots anyway…"

"Thank you, Whisper," a familiar voice replied, and at last Starscream glanced up from his diagnostic, his features quirking into a grin at seeing who his visitor was.

"Long time no see, Sepp," he observed, dryly. "What are you doing here? Come to join the party and exact a little righteous vengeance of your own?"

"Hardly," the big female replied, drolly, striding casually through the thronging junior officers, who parted for her like ice before the prow of a ship. "Given how you three don't seem to be able to do anything without getting yourselves broken up, I thought I best show willing and pre-empt being needed."

"Tch! You _wound me greatly_, doctor-"

"Surgeon."

"-And surely you're not daring to accuse the mighty Starscream of being _careless in action_?"

She nodded briefly in greeting to the other two. "I'm not _accusing_ anything, I'm just telling it like it is."

"What are _you_ doing here?" Skywarp wondered out loud, managing to do a full orbit and a half of surveillance before she caught his wing and growled at him to stay still. "Better be careful, Screamer, soon Ama won't let you out of her sight without permission."

"And what exactly is that supposed to mean?" Forceps challenged.

"Well, you _are_ being kinda mumsy, Sepp. Anyone would think you were his long-lost-creator."

Starscream shook his head, wearily. "You have my permission to hit him, if you like."

"Thank you, but I think I'll decline. Wouldn't want to squash our delicate little hero before he even steps out of the door, now, would I?"

"I'm not _that_ delicate." Skywarp pouted, tagging along at the rear of the group as they set off towards the yard where everyone else had begun to assemble. "Come on, doctor. What are you doing here?" he chased. "You can't possibly be wanting to come along."

"Why not?" Forceps briefly folded her arms over her powerful chest and stuck out her jaw. "You don't think I'm going to let you merry band of overexcited idiots go off _alone_, do you?"

"But you're Neutral-" Thundercracker reminded her, surprised.

"-_and_ a medic! _And_ a _femme_!" Skywarp added, sounding unrealistically horrified.

"And you're a Decepticon, so what? Codustral has become _all_ our enemy. If my coming along gets Blue off the streets and makes my job easier, then I'm all for helping out. Besides." A flicker of a smile ghosted over her features, and she gave Skywarp a meaningful look. "Someone with a smidgen of common sense has to come along to haul all your afts out of the Pit."

The yard was already over-full when they arrived, and there was still only two-thirds of the strike force present; a good number of the constables present had begun to spill out into the street. The large, unexpected patch of orange in the periphery of his vision was what attracted Starscream's attention, however – Spotweld was waiting semi-patiently by the stairs, fidgeting his feet uneasily.

"Hello, Spots. You're not going to tell me you're coming along as well, are you?" the red Seeker wondered, curiously, leaning over the stair-rail to talk to the protoform.

Spotweld actually backed off a step. "Um, no? I wasn't planning on coming with you, this sort of violence isn't my scene," he apologised, softly, watching as the little group finally filtered out through the doors and down into the little clear space at the rear of the yard, close to where Hardline and Boxer were going over a map. "I just, um, I though it would be good if I wished you luck? And I-… well, I wanted to try and persuade Sepp out of going?"

Skywarp gave the giant a considering look. "You'd be useful to have on the team, you know," he mused. "Even just _seeing_ someone as big as you would probably put a lot of 'em off, even if you didn't do anything. I bet you've got plenty of experience in subduing unruly mechs from working at the hospital, too."

"Primus, no, I couldn't possibly," Spotweld disagreed, flatly, shaking his head. "Bad enough that you've corrupted Sepp into these violent ways, I really don't want to be involved as well?"

"Well, yeah, but-"

"It's okay, Warp," Starscream leaned closer and patted the teleport's shoulder. "Don't keep pushing. If he doesn't want to be involved, that's his decision, and we should respect it," he continued, gently, ignoring the way his wingmates gawped like idiots at this unexpected and unnatural change in manner. "I know how you feel, Spots. Must make you feel pretty helpless, correct? All those machines there who you can't help…"

"That's not what I meant," Spotweld argued, shrinking back. Seemed his halves were in agreement for once. "I just… I don't want to be involved. I can't be responsible for adding to the problem. I don't want to fight. I don't want to be involved in this!"

"That's okay. We're not going to ask you to be involved," Starscream smiled, and patted the taller mech's shoulder, gently. "We'll let you know when we're done, and we'll bring the sick and the injured to you at the hospital, so you don't have to worry about getting your hands dirty."

"-…injured?" Spotweld's optics flickered.

"Oh, I'm sure there'll be at least a few. We _are _going to blow up a factory after all. A factory probably full of toxic materials, shock-sensitive explosives, combustibles…" Starscream shrugged, apologetically. "Some probably won't make it to hospital still functioning, but still. We'll respect your wishes." He'd only known Spotweld for a few dozen orns, but clearly knew _exactly_ which of his buttons to press to get a result he wanted.

Spotweld was easily a third as tall again as Starscream, and _could_ have probably _loomed_ quite effectively if he'd wanted to, but ultimately he wasn't up to the job. He struggled against the pleading look in those innocent blue optics for a full three astroseconds before folding like a wet paper bag.

"I hate you," he muttered, slumping down in the corner of the yard like a kicked spider.

"Does that mean you're with us?" Starscream looked obscenely pleased to have finally got a rise out of the lanky giant.

"Yes." Pale green optics flickered murderously. "But only to help the injured ones! I'm not going to hurt anyone. I'm not going to fight. I'm just going to… to follow along behind?"

"What happened there?" Skywarp wondered, quietly, looking briefly askance at Thundercracker.

Thundercracker pulled a face. His brain already hurt, even without the need to think too hard over it. "I _think_… that _Starscream_ just _guilt-tripped_ a _committed Neutral_ into _joining _our little ragtag Autobot-Decepticon Police Alliance," he groaned, rubbing his temples.

"That's like… a whole sentence of oxymoron," Skywarp observed, almost admiringly. "I have _got_ to learn how to do that."

Pulsar was one of the last constables to arrive, tagging along behind Longbeam and a newly-decontaminated shamefaced Whitesides, who avoided Starscream's glare and tried to pretend he wasn't there at all really. Leaving her two room-mates to rejoin the rest of the lower ranks by the street, Pulsar sidled over to Skywarp. "Is this it? When are we going?" she wondered, quietly.

"Sorry, what was that? I distinctly heard a 'we' in there," Skywarp gave her a stern glance. "_We_ will not be doing anything. _I _will be making the first strike, and _you_ will be going with your peers."

"What, you're not taking her as well?" Thundercracker half-teased. "I was beginning to think you two were joined at the hip."

"Pssh." Skywarp waved a hand, dismissively. "I can't take Squeaky with me, she's too big a risk."

"What?!" She sounded outraged. "This is my _job_, how can you possibly sa_mmf-_!"

He'd flattened a hand over her mouth and wagged a finger, warningly. "Look, if I take you along, I'll have to get you _out_, as well," he groused. "And _that_ is a risk. Besides! We've not had time to get our story straight, you'll only blow my cover."

"You're taking _him_-!" She waved an arm in Jazz's direction. "Cali will only suspect something if I don't come with you, she expects it, now…!"

"_He's_ got something useful to do, and _you'll_ only get in the way," Skywarp disagreed. "And I can tell her she put her bug into the wrong Crisis, and you're dead. Easy!"

"Oh, _thanks_," Pulsar folded her arms and scrunched her nose. "Anyone would think you're just scared I'll get hurt, and I'm _not_ some silly ineffectual little bit of fluff who needs your protection!"

"Now, see, if _that_ was the case I'd find the highest building possible and dump you on the roof, then fetch you down afterwards," he corrected, and smirked at the way she winced at the idea. "_Regardless_. I am not. Taking you. With me," he repeated, slowly, giving her a prod for good measure. "I'm a good teleport but I can't carry both of you. You'll just have to slum it and go with everyone else, Squeaky."

"You're going to have to be careful, Warp," Thundercracker lifted a finger. "Much more of this adult, responsible behaviour and people will think Screamer's invention broke your brain, after all."

"Oh, ha very ha." The teleport wrinkled his lip, derisively.

"Would you _please_ stop calling me 'Squeaky'?" Pulsar hissed at him, once everyone else's attention had drifted away. "Even Nightsun's started to pick up on it!"

"Why, what'll you do if I _don't_?" he challenged, and gave her one of those indecent grins. "I look forward to being surprised. If you feel up to it."

She narrowed her optics at him. "You seem to have stolen most of my tricks, but I'm sure I could think of something," she huffed, grumpily. "That, or I'll just ask Hardline to give you a good solid boot up the rear."

"Ooh, kinky!" Skywarp grinned, and patted her helm before she could splutter her way to a counter-retort. "Come on Squeaky, no more time for chatting. We're gonna hold everyone up…"

Standing away to one side, Forceps cast her gaze over the assembled fleet of vehicles, and huffed air tersely through her vents. Everyone here – with the exception of the two heavyweights, Boxer and Hardline – was built for speed; even the gangrel Spotweld had been built with running in mind – his long legs were light and springy, and he lacked an alt-mode altogether.

"You're all too quick on your feet," she grumbled. "I'll never keep up. I'll have to transform."

Boxer gave her a look; he'd always assumed the femme to just be a very large protoform. "You even _have_ an alt?"

"I've not used it in aeons," Forceps admitted, quietly. "Not since taking the consultancy at the District General. I barely remember I have one. Won't even be too surprised if I manage to get stuck in the shift. Give me a moment, would you?"

Boxer nodded, and backed off a step or two. Hardline had already transformed, and was sat with his engine idling patiently down by the gate.

Forceps cycled cool air, briefly, then let her arms dangle at her sides, gave them a little shake like an athlete limbering up, to loosen out the joints and make sure everything was in as peak an operating condition as possible. Then she offlined her optics, and concentrated, and felt little switches clicking over. There was an unfamiliar-familiar sense of _shifting_, of _motion_, the sensation of relays rerouting, of actuators reconfiguring, of familiar body parts tucking away behind screens and shields and heavy plating. It took a longer time than she figured it should have, but once everything had finally settled out she felt in fine working order, just a lot lower to the ground than she had before.

"I've not gone like _this_ for aeons," the new flatbed truck groused, running system checks. "Surprised I can still do it. Be glad to get back to my root mode."

Boxer observed she'd been being literal when she said she'd drag their hides out of the Pit – she was built for heavy-haulage, a low-sided open-top truck floating on powerful gravity lifters, with plenty of space on board for both injured citizens and their helpers. "You could just _stay _in your root mode-" he offered.

"Too slow. _Far_ too slow. I'll get there after you lot have either won the day, or else got yourselves killed."

"In okay shape, though?"

She revved her engines in reply – a deep, powerful _roar_ that made the air quiver – and a dust of fine particulates vented from under-used exhaust-ports. "Not at peak capacity, but it'll do," she acceded. "Ready to head out whenever you are."

Once he'd finally joined the truck and the tank in vehicle mode, it was more apparent where Boxer's name had come from. He was a long, flattish construct, heavily armoured and bristling with weaponry, looking rather like a boxy vehicular battering ram. "Everyone good to go?" his voice boomed out over the yard, and there was a chorus of agreement. "All right. Skywarp, Jazz? We'll follow you at a safe distance, for now. You're both happy you know what you have to do?"

There were nods in reply from the only two still in their root-modes. "I'll let you know as soon as the field's down," Jazz confirmed, and quirked a lopsided smile. "Although if you keep an eye out for some fireworks, you'll probably already know." He tilted his glance towards his partner. "Ready to head out, Warp?"

"Been ready for cycles, waiting for you lot to quit talking and get moving," Skywarp replied, dryly, wrinkling his lip in a one-sided sneer. "You ever been teleported before?"

Jazz arched a brow in response. "No, wh-" was as far as he got before the Seeker dropped a 'friendly' hand down on his shoulder and stepped them forwards into nothing.

0o0o0o0o0

Skywarp returned to normal space a full body-length up in the air (Jazz considered purely to alarm him when there was suddenly no ground to stand on). The teleport touched down gracefully in a derelict corner of the plant, and let Jazz scuttle behind a heap of chemical drums. "Got all your kit?" he checked, quietly.

"Got it," the smaller mech confirmed, nodding, and gave the flier a grin and a thumbs-up. "Good luck, Decepti-creep."

"Ha. Good luck yourself, Auto-dork," Skywarp sneered back, amusedly. _At least __some__ things don't change._ "Watch yourself, yeah? If I'm gonna be busy distracting the femme, I'm not going to be able to come snag your aft out of the fire if things get too hot for you."

"Oh, don't you worry about me, I'm far more resilient than you like to contemplate!"

"Peh, yeah, I'd noticed, after all those vorns we've been trying to get rid of you…" Skywarp gunned his thrusters, and launched himself back into the air. "Quicker you get that field down, the quicker we can all go home and get some rest."

Calibrator was away on the distant margin of the plant, discussing something with Deuce. Skywarp rumbled his thrusters to get their attention, and glided gracefully down to land on his toes in the nearest little clear bit of ground. (Okay, so he was showing off a bit, but who cared? He was keeping them distracted, right?)

"Skywarp," Calibrator greeted, with an inscrutable smile. "Good to see you back at last."

He half-bowed. "Good to _be_ back, Cali," he agreed, offering his own enigmatic look and exaggerating a withdrawal-fidget. "Even if you do seem surprised to see me."

Her smile became a little more cynical. "Perhaps a little," she accepted, holding up one spidery hand with thumb and forefinger a few microns apart, and flicking the other at Deuce, who knew instinctually what was wanted. "I had begun to wonder if you lacked the appropriate devotion to the cause."

"It's always good practice to bet on the winning team," Skywarp reminded, amusedly, accepting the smallest cube of Crisis that he'd seen so far off Deuce. "The police are waltzing around as if they've already won, but I figure they've underestimated you."

She preened very slightly at the praise, then frowned, puzzled, looking around his wings, realising something. "Where is Pulsar?"

"What?" Skywarp followed her gaze back over his own shoulders, then affected an offhand look and shrugged, took a sip of the cube Deuce had handed over (and tried not to cross his fingers _too_ obviously that Starscream's pouch would work). "Oh, Skinny? Eh, she overdosed. No-one told you? She's in hospital, but they don't think she's gonna make it."

Whatever else she had going against her, Calibrator at least had the decency to look upset at the news. "I'm… sorry to hear that," she admitted, quietly. "Regardless how we ultimately treated each other, I would have liked to still consider she may have forgiven me, thought of me as a friend."

"Really? _You_ put that bug-thing into her cube," he replied, with a little frown, licking the last drop of Crisis from his lower lip. "I figured you must have really been narked off at her, for some reason. It was horrible to watch, even for a Decepticon like me."

Calibrator kept her gaze downcast. "I hadn't intended for her to die," she disagreed, quietly. "I genuinely hoped she would elect to come back here. If she genuinely was poisoned, it was a mistake."

"If killing her was a mistake, why'd you give her the bug in the first place?" Skywarp challenged, wondering if he could get her to admit her intention had been to kill him instead.

She gave him a probing look, and neatly sidestepped the question. "You don't seem too overtly concerned at her misfortune. I had begun to think the pair of you were closer than you were trying to let on," she observed, softly. "It would have made a nice change from the norm, and increased your value to my organisation."

_Aw, f__rag, don't go blow your cover now._ "Need I remind you what she was?" Skywarp sneered, trying to ignore the discomfiting feelings that flitted through the back of his mind. _Just an Autobot, right? …right?_ "We are talking about the same skinny noisy little Policebot, right? Hardly a prize catch."

Calibrator narrowed her optics. "She used to go to the same lengths to convince me you didn't mean anything, either," she said, testingly.

_Really? _"Eh, she was fun for a while, I guess," he shrugged, and smirked. "Neither of us had any plans to develop it outside of a little temporary entertainment, and there'll always be more of her kind around. Station's full of 'em."

"Hmm." She narrowed her optics, more obviously suspicious, but let it slide. "All right, enough chatter. Did you get it?"

"Get what, this?" Skywarp unhooked the cannon from where he'd carried it on his own wing, and handed it over. "What did you want it for? And where's my payment? I might be on your side for now but I expect to be adequately compensated!" _Careful, Warp. Don't want to sound like Screamer's been giving you too many prompts._

"Patience, please, patience," Calibrator soothed, gently, examining the battered weapon; against her small form, it looked almost outlandishly large. "You'll get your pay when-… hmm. This is damaged," she pointed out.

"Yeah, well, you know Screamer. He didn't hand it over when I asked nicely," Skywarp shrugged. "Had to, uh… persuade him. With a big metal beating stick."

"I hope this doesn't mean he'll have followed you." She gave him a warning glare.

"Nah. I left him with a broken vocaliser, locked in a storage compartment in a warehouse. He'll be lucky if someone finds him before his spark gives out."

"I seem to recall he is quite the tenacious little spark."

"Tenacity doesn't get you through a locked door without a key." He leaned down closer to her. "Come on, you've had your look. Where is my _pay_, femme?"

"You will get your payment once I check this still works."

"I get paid _now_ or you won't get the _chance_ to work out if it still works." His cannons were already humming softly as they charged. "Listen, _femme_, I took a huge risk to get you that thing! I've alienated my wing-mates, and if _Megatron _catches wind of it, he'll drag me all the way to the Pit and back! I didn't do this out of the goodness of my spark, I did this for the pay you promised me. You don't pay me, and I can personally guarantee I'll make things _painful_ for you."

"Watch it, you." Deuce slipped himself between them. "Threaten her again, Airhead, and I'll make things painful for _you_," he warned, puffing himself up in threat.

Skywarp wrinkled his lip, derisively. "Is that my cue to run away and sob into my energon?" he wondered, lifting his chin. "Sorry, but it takes more than an argumentative addict to make _me_ turn tail."

"Perhaps you need a little re-educating on the fact that I'm bigger than you are."

Calibrator gave the pair a long-suffering smile; Deuce and Skywarp faced each other, glaring, and looked about ready to come to blows. _Much as I appreciate having such powerful machines ready to fight for me… _"Stand down, Deuce," she instructed, at last. "We don't need to argue."

"_Stand down_?! I could take him out!" the truck exclaimed, irritably.

"Oh yeah? You want to _test _that assumption, ground-pounder?" Skywarp already had his fists up, in preparation.

Calibrator waved a hand. "Just come with me, and we will get his payment. Once our accounts are settled, we can discuss in more depth how things are to proceed."

"But _Cali-…_!"

"Are you arguing with me, Deuce?" She smiled, dangerously. "I'd cut your allowance, but you'd be doubly unbearable."

Deuce grumbled, but backed down.

"Please don't undermine my authority again, Deuce," she threatened, softly, once they were just out of audio range. "I tire of having to fight you about the smallest things."

"But-"

"You know what I could do to you. Please don't tempt me to actually do it."

Deuce glared and flickered his optics, but hunched his shoulders. He knew it wouldn't be inconceivable for her to introduce some sort of deadly toxin into his Ruin. "You know Codustral doesn't need the likes of _him_," he sulked. "_We_ are in the position of power, here. The Autobots are spread too thinly, the Decepticons are too busy with their in-house power-struggles a whole world away… we've become the biggest faction here. We could take over quietly while their attention is distracted. We could seed Blue right through the warring camps before they even knew we were there. Even the _Mighty Megatron_ could be ours, Cali, with a little effort, his own loyal soldiers taking it back to him."

She stared up at him, irritably. "_Your point,_" she growled, warningly.

"We should do away with him _now,_ before he turns into another giant fragging spanner in the works."

0o0o0o0o0

_Well, so far, so good_.

As Jazz had predicted, the field generator for the plant's defensive shield hadn't been hard to find. It wasn't very _big_ - maybe half as tall as him, and only barely as wide – but it was a squat, powerful little thing, all glowing lights and gently throbbing power. It made half a dozen unused circuits light up in his frontal cortex just from the strength of electrical field around it alone – and he knew that since just going near it wasn't going to get the job done, he'd have to actually _touch_ it, and he wasn't looking forwards to that at all.

The screen showed a large mushroom-shaped glowing field above the plant; not particularly _deep_, but covering a huge amount of area, and completely unbroken. The lowest portion of the screen had the technical schema, and if he was interpreting it right – and he was pretty sure he must be – then the thing was pulling a _huge_ amount of power off the grid. No wonder the air around it fizzed with static. An array of bar-charts showed specifications like field-patency and field-strength, and all were green, all fluctuating around the 95-100 percent mark.

Well designed and efficient. It was going to almost – but only _almost_ – be a shame to kill it. Jazz smiled silently to himself and shrugged. Maybe he could tell Wheeljack about it, use it on the Ark when he got back, if he got a good enough look at its insides-

Oh, who was he trying to kid? He'd never get enough time to study the thing in sufficient detail, certainly not the sort of detail 'Jack would need to Not-Blow-The-Ark-Up. It was a small miracle it was so unattended, right now – but then, if they were confident no-one could get in, and it was working well, why would they have a reason to guard it? They had better things to be doing, like making preparations for the impending police assault.

Jazz put out his hands and opened up the access panel at the device's base; static shot up both arms and made him momentarily woozy. _Wow_. He clung to the device's podium for a second or two and waited for the static to ground itself properly before going any further. Didn't want to brush against something he shouldn't!

There were a lot of loose wires in there, he mused, crouching to inspect the internal structure. He could theoretically just put his hand in and yank a handful out, and it'd have the same result. But then, if he just _unplugged_ it, they could probably easily plug it all back _in_. And that might trap half the force _inside_ and half _outside_. Had to remove the generator permanently.

Oh well. Good job he'd always liked fireworks, because _this_ was going to get kinda noisy.

Using large handfuls of the plastic explosive that Calibrator herself had left in the form of her incendiary devices at the police station, Jazz got to work…

0o0o0o0o0

Leaving Skywarp to lounge atop a low storage garage, Calibrator slipped away to contact the main gates. She was getting increasingly suspicious of their supposed Seeker ally, especially since even Deuce – normally far too scatterbrained to make that sort of assessment – was grumbling sceptically. There was one last piece of information she wanted before calling in her heavy troops.

"Siphon." She gave her loyalist a hard look when he finally got to the comms terminal. "We have an unexpected visitor."

The tanker quirked a brow. "Is that good or bad?"

"You tell me. As I understood it, we had sent him away to die."

The image on the screen hesitated for so long, Calibrator began to think the signal was being jammed. "You don't mean Skywarp?" Siphon wondered, at last.

"That is precisely who I mean," she confirmed, grimly. "Who, if I recall correctly, I told you to _do something about_."

"Which I did! I gave him a bug, he should be long dead-… Primus! Don't trust him, Cali," Siphon insisted, softly. "Get rid of him while we still have the chance!"

She gave him a wary look; he was echoing Deuce's words, and hadn't even seen the flier. "I know you don't like to have your superiority challenged, Siphon," she reassured, testingly, "but rest assured I have no plans to replace-"

"It's not to do with that," he interrupted, urgently. "He's playing games with us! Skywarp should be _dead_, so that's either one of the other two painted up to _look _like him, or they've somehow found our trick and cured the addiction."

Calibrator narrowed her optics. "He tells me you seeded the wrong crisis with the drill-bug."

"I can tell you _for a fact _that he's lying, whoever he is," Siphon insisted. "I brought _one_ bug from the cold store, and I know for a fact that I put it into _his_ Crisis. Your Policebot friend had already had hers, remember?"

Calibrator's optics dimmed to a dangerous, murky green. "Indeed. In which case we may have to take additional steps to remove this little problem."

0o0o0o0o0

"_I hope you lot are well armed_."

"Of course we're well armed." Thundercracker was sitting on the edge of the roof of an old tower block, swinging his feet in the crosswinds and waiting boredly for the sign to go. The whole police convoy had halted just out of range of the factory defensive emplacements, waiting for the call to move in, and half had transformed back to root mode and were discussing the impending battle in anxious little voices in the street below his feet. "What's up?"

"_There must be a thousand of 'em in here,_" Skywarp explained, amusedly. "_All right, maybe not a thousand, but still a fragging lot. They'll do anything she says so long as she gives 'em the Blue._"

"Are they all armed?" Starscream wondered, pacing back and forth behind his wingmate.

"_Hn, no. Plenty of them _have _got proper guns, but they're pretty outnumbered by ones that haven't. Most have just got bits of old iron and scrap metal to try wallop you lot with._" There was a cynical laugh. _"I think they're relying on weight of numbers, here_."

"All right, all right, don't go and blow your cover," Starscream sighed, and let himself over the edge of the roof, descending smoothly to pass the message on to the superintendent. "Maintain radio silence for now. We'll plan our next move once we've definitely got the upper hand."

"_Yeah yeah, all right, oh paranoid one. Skywarp out._"

"What's taking them so long?" Boxer wondered, sharply, the instant Starscream's thrusters touched down on the street.

"I'm not sure," Starscream replied, with an irritable shake of his head. "That was Skywarp; he and Jazz are working separately."

"And…?"

"Cali has 'a lot' of loyalists at her beck and call," Starscream folded his arms. "Don't ask me to define 'a lot' too accurately, because this _is_ Skywarp's subjective assessment and it could be anywhere from ten to ten thousand. From his manner, I would hazard a guess and say we're probably looking at the hundred mark."

"Hn." Boxer rubbed his helm. "Loyalists? Or just addicts?"

"Again… Skywarp's never been the hottest at battlefield tactical assessments," Starscream sighed, and managed a half-hearted wince. "All addicts, I would guess, but how loyal they are is anyone's guess."

"Well, if they're addicts, we owe it to them to give them the chance to clean up," Boxer ruled. "Especially as we don't know how they got involved in this in the first place. So we shoot to stun, not to kill. All right?"

The Autobots were quick to agree, and the two Decepticons, horribly outnumbered and outvoted, reluctantly nodded.

"The grunts, all right," Starscream accepted. "The small fry, the ones with no choice in the matter. But I am _not_ letting that tractor get away with what he did to us, and I make no guarantee I won't dismantle that traitorous femme with my bare hands, either."

"If you want them taken in alive, you better arrest the pair of us now," Thundercracker agreed, from above. "But then you might find it difficult to get onto the premises."

Hardline leaned closer to Boxer and murmured something neither Seeker could catch.

"What do you mean, you agreed to give them 'first dibs' on them?!" Boxer echoed, aghast. "We're not talking about the best bunk in the dorms, here!"

"Well, it got them on board," Hardline reminded, amusedly. "I think we should honour the promise, just this once."

0o0o0o0o0

Skywarp was still sitting on his low perch when there was _finally_ a low rumble in the middle-distance, and a plume of debris shot skywards. _Took your time, Auto-dork_. He dropped lightly back to the floor, watching as Calibrator moaned and laced her fingers over the back of her helm, staring in horror at the Autobot-induced fireworks, and slunk carefully backwards, drawing his feet carefully low to the ground so not to make loud footsteps. _Time to depart-_

A heavy hand dropped down onto the upper margin of one broad wing, and closed its fingers tightly enough to dent the alloys. "Aw, don't run off," a familiar voice said, sweetly. "We're not done with you yet."

Skywarp glared up at his captor, murderously, and tried not to look like the hand on his wing was painful, but his optics had tightened in the corners and he was leaning very slightly away from Fatigue, trying to curl himself out from the giant fingers. "Hey, get-… get off! Don't you touch me-" he threatened, trying to contort himself into such a position as to be able to shoot him, but the tractor knew the Seeker's wings were in the way.

Calibrator smiled triumphantly. "I knew I should have interrogated you for information the instant you got here," she hissed. "Well don't worry, I won't make the same mistake again."

"You won't get the chance, you're too late to make any counter-preparations," Skywarp informed her, trying to look like he was just amused but still struggling to free his wing. "The police are going to descend on this place like the very spawn of the Pit, and take your whole operation right to pieces."

"_If_ they can get in, and _if_ they can get back _out_. Trust me, I have secondary generators that I just have to bring online, and we can deal with the police at our leisure, especially those who end up trapped inside here. In a way, you've helped us, Skywarp. We'll get anyone trapped behind the field onto our payroll, and we'll not only have the weaponry and expertise, we'll have more insiders. Good job!"

Skywarp snarled inarticulately, and abruptly _stopped_ trying to pull away, instead throwing himself bodily at the tractor, catching him by surprise and dislodging the fingers on his wing. "What if I get you _first_?!" he barked, lunging for the tiny femme while the tractor was still picking himself up. He latched one lurid hand easily around her throat and was grabbing the other for her narrow chest when a hand fastened around his thruster and _yanked_ backwards. He gave a _yeep!_ of alarm and lost his grip as both of them tumbled to the ground, and then there was a flash of intense pain through his wings when something very heavy came to rest on top of them.

"Nicely done, Fatigue," Calibrator praised, breathlessly, observing the giant sitting square on top of the thrashing Seeker. "Do you think you could manage a little _earlier_, next time?"

The tractor inclined his head, amusedly. "Sorry, Boss," he apologised, not sounding in the slightest bit remorseful, and petted the back of the pinned flier's helm, which just served to incense Skywarp further. "Kinda got used to being gentle with the delicate little thing."

"Originally I would have praised your dedication, but gentleness is rather pointless given that he has vastly outstayed his welcome. Bring him," Calibrator said, her soft voice icy with finality, and flicked her wrist, sending a small glittering ring sailing gracefully through the air. "We will get rid of this troublemaker once and for all."

Fatigue snatched the ring out of the air. "Aw, you've brought him some jewellery," he chuckled, snapping it open between his massive fingers. "Sit tight, Airhead, and maybe we'll make it painless."

Skywarp struggled very briefly, trying to gather enough co-ordination to mount a defence, but the tractor mashed the collar easily down around his neck and he _slumped_ against the ground, helpless.

"Good boy," Fatigue snickered, picking him up by a wing, and followed Calibrator.

0o0o0o0o0

Ah, it was good to see some fireworks that weren't the product of Wheeljack testing some new invention, Jazz mused, watching contentedly as the debris began to rain hotly back down on the plant. The explosion had been a reassuringly comprehensive one – a narrow plume of fine material had shot skywards, following the shape of the field, and the brilliant flames and roiling smoke had been contained in a reasonably small area, so with luck it would have just been property that got destroyed, not individuals.

There'd been uproar among the loyalists in the immediate aftermath of the detonation, and none of them paid Jazz the slightest bit of attention as he made his way quite brazenly back towards the perimeter – although whether they were just so addled that they thought he was one of them, he had no idea.

Way above, he could see Nightsun's team beginning to move in, assessing the field, and one of the other helicopters fired off a brilliant scarlet flare to confirm the field was down.

No word from Skywarp, though. He was _sure _the dark Seeker should have been skyborne and raining a little righteous destruction down on the place by now, but there'd not been a peep out of him.

_Gonna regret this, I just _know_ it_, Jazz groaned, inwardly, and slunk off in the direction he'd first seen Skywarp head off in.

…the teleport didn't take much effort to find. In fact, Jazz almost walked square into him, just barely managing to duck out of sight before Calibrator spotted him. Skywarp himself was slung over the shoulder of an olive-green giant of a machine, and he looked… well, almost _dead_. He sagged pathetically down across the giant's shoulders, arms dangling lifelessly, his wings dented, and looking closer Jazz could see the once-bright optics were a muted damson.

The saboteur fidgeted, awkwardly. Common sense told him to let them just do whatever they were going to do to him, get him out of the way for good. The fewer Seekers they had on their patch back home, the better.

…his conscience, however, gave him a sound scolding for it. The lengths the trine had gone to just to get Blue down for good… and Skywarp had actually not been too hideously Decepticon-ish, recently. Snarky and opinionated and noisy, but actually sorta… well, _nice_, for Megatron's most loyal flier. Without him, the Blue could have taken over half the city by now.

He kicked himself, inside, quietly cursed them, then sneaked after Fatigue's broad back.


	32. Chapter 32

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Thirty-Two**

**Disclaimer:** As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. (...Except where they're obviously OCs, which Hasbro would be silly to want to claim.)

**A/N:** You'll be pleased to hear I don't have much longer to go on this one. ;) It's kinda turned into a four-month-long NaNoWriMo. :ponders: Anyway! Onward.

* * *

Jazz watched from his hiding place as the tractor dumped his unwilling cargo down on the short conveyor to the recycling mill, head towards the heavy grinding plates, and secured him with a light twist or two of metallic webbing. The latter looked rather like overkill; Skywarp just lay there, completely inert, one arm draping out across a wing, staring blindly at the sky. A rash of sickly olive-green smears scuffed over his dark paintwork, so there'd obviously been a struggle, but he didn't look so badly damaged that he'd be completely helpless.

There was a collar around the teleport's neck, though, studded with bright purplish-blue diodes glowing antagonistically, and it didn't take much to put the two things together and conclude the silver device was what was keeping the flier so powerless. Of course, it _could_ be a trick, Jazz recognised, but even Decepticons weren't usually the sort to jam their heads into recycling plants just to catch their enemies out.

Luckily, Fatigue and Calibrator had their attention elsewhere, apparently exchanging anxious communications about the police with Siphon on the main gate. Jazz slunk his way along the far side of the mill, keeping low to the ground so he was less visible over the top of the conveyor, just out of their direct line of attention. The conveyor itself was moving traditionally slowly, the heavy plates grinding quietly against each other, and Skywarp lay where Fatigue had dumped him, a good arm's length from the mouth of the mill, so he had maybe half a breem to carry out his rescue-

_… I'm putting myself at risk to save the life of my mortal enemy, here. Hope Primus is taking note of all these good deeds!_

"You watch yourself, because if I'm busy blowing the field generator up, I'm not going to be able to snag your aft out of the fire if it gets too hot for you," Jazz quipped, softly, by the downed flier's audio, but didn't even get a grumble in response. _That _couldn't be right. "Skywarp? Hey, you okay in there, buddy?" he hissed, ignoring the urge to laugh in hysteria at exactly what he was just saying. "Speak to me."

The dull maroon gaze managed (with difficulty) to come around and focus on him. "…get-… get thisss… mmmantle… off me…" Skywarp fizzed out, his voice mostly just angry static.

"Do you know how it comes off?" Jazz wondered, softly, examining the fine silver.

"…don't… _caaare_… jussst…"

"All right, all right. Before you get a killer headache, right?" Jazz put out a hand and ran his fingertips carefully around to the back of the collar. "Okay, I think I found something-"

"Hey, what do you think you're doing?"

Jazz jerked his head up at the exclamation, sensing impending doom advancing on him. Fatigue had already got halfway across the short distance separating them, his massive green hands balling into fists-

"Aw, slag," Jazz snatched his hand back and leaped away… but had already snapped the clasp at the back of the collar open. "You're on your own, Seeker!"

Fatigue gave a low yell of annoyance and grabbed for Jazz; the smaller mech ducked easily under the ponderous grab, dodged away backwards.

"Can't you do better than that?" Jazz chirped, keeping _just_ out of range of the clawing fingers. It was keeping the tractor's attention on him, and – _more importantly_ – off the suddenly-animated Seeker struggling his silent way out from under the webbing.

Skywarp had waited until Fatigue's attention was distracted away from himself before bringing his systems all online. Those grind-plates were altogether too close to his head, now – get the giant's attention back too soon and he'd probably sit on him just long enough to-

A shadow loomed up over him. _Frag! It's not Fatigue I should be worrying about right now, but __Cali__-_!

"I will _not_ just stand back and watch while you ruin this!" the analyst said, shakily, hefting an oversized mallet above her head. "You've caused us problems for far too long."

"Now just wait a minute-!" Skywarp yelped, alarmed, clawing his fingers frantically over the webbing and scattering shreds of silver wire everywhere.

The whine of actuators was Calibrator's only response as she put all her strength into a swing.

Skywarp threw himself sideways off the belt so hard that he almost broke his neck on landing, and the mallet _crunched_ down on the conveyor, a fraction of a hairbreadth from where his head had been an instant before. He cursed the pain that shot all the way up his abused wing as his weight came down hard on its margin, but didn't dare allow himself the luxury of nursing the injury – any second now, that mallet might try and smack his head off again! He threw himself back at the conveyor, weapons whining as they charged, hoping to get his counter-attack in first.

He needn't have bothered. Calibrator was wise enough to know when to cut her losses and leave; she'd already fled, skidding around a corner and _just_ ducking in time to miss the strafe of laser fire that chased her from the irate Seeker she'd left on the floor.

Unfortunately, the shots attracted Fatigue's attention…

"Hey, Warp, _duck_!" came Jazz's yell, from behind.

Rather that turn to look, or argue the order, Skywarp just did instantly as he had been told, and the strike that had clearly been intended for his head sailed gracefully past and _thunked_ into the side of the mill. Accompanied by the indelicate music of Fatigue's cussing, Skywarp lurched away to one side and out of reach of the massive fingers that grabbed for him.

"Hey, Fatty, can't you do better than that?" the teleport sneered, from just out of reach. "No wonder Cali's so far out of her league, with mechs like _you_ on her staff! Even _I _have more processors to rub together than you do!"

Fatigue bristled at the insult. "How about you come back here and say that, you little coward?" he snarled, advancing.

"Oh, now now, no need for rude names," Skywarp scolded, rudely, goading the tractor closer. "As Starscream would say, you're confusing _cowardice_ with _prudence_. Why would I come closer to insult you when I can do it just as easily from over here where you can't quiiite reach me?"

"Fine. Allow me to rectify that!" Fatigue balled his hands into tight green fists, and moved closer-

Skywarp rolled his optics, exaggeratedly, and allowed the tractor to make two useless swings at him that stood no chance of connecting before making his own move. With an athleticism that would have done an Olympian proud, he launched himself into the air, twisted gracefully at the waist… and blistered the most jawbreakingly beautiful _kick_ around Fatigue's jowls. Components audibly _crunched_ on impact.

Fatigue gave a long, low _grooan_ of pain, his cortex completely destabilised by the blow, and toppled gracelessly backwards, to crash down so _hard_ the floor actually shook.

Skywarp hung in the air, thrusters purring just enough to counterbalance his weight. "Well, come _on_, Auto-dork." He turned on Jazz, not savouring the brief victory. "Where's our fragging _backup _got to? Have you _told_ them? And what about that generator?!"

"In case you missed the fireworks, I've _already _killed the field generator," Jazz argued, grimly. "Blew it up into lots of little tiny bits! There's no way she'll repair-"

"Haven't you learned _anything _about her over the past couple of dozen orns? She's playing this to _win_, and she's _always_ got a backup plan. She's got at least one extra generator," Skywarp argued, fidgeting. "Primus only knows where it _is_-"

"I'll find it," Jazz reassured, and quirked his lips into a grin. "If there genuinely _is_ another one, it'll be on the readouts for the power grid somewhere. So you just go do your thing – if you think you're capable of doing it without getting your tailfins so singed again! – and I'll do mine."

0o0o0o0o0

The other two Seekers were circling irritably when Boxer finally shouted up to them. "Nightsun confirms the field is down! You can make your approach any time you like, and we'll follow on behind you."

"In that case, if you'd all like to excuse me," Thundercracker drawled. "I'm just going to go knock on the door, see if anyone's home." Beat. "You might all want to cover your audios."

"What did he mean by that?" Boxer challenged.

"I'd just do as he suggests," Starscream revved his own engines, amusedly. "I'm going after him. In the unlikely event that no-one's home – or at least no-one who wants to let us in – we'll need someone with a key."

"_Taking a risk, here, Screamer,_" Thundercracker confided, as they wheeled about to get a good approach run. "_What if the field isn't down?_"

"_We're helpless, sparking heaps of paralysed machinery on the other side, that's what,_" Starscream replied, dryly. "_Come on, we'll just have to hope it worked. The longer we worry about whether it did or not, the longer they've got to make counter-measures!_"

"_Hn. Guess I'll go knock on the door, then,_" Thundercracker observed, already accelerating away. "_Better pull up if you see me fall out of the sky_!"

Starscream snorted, but hung back at a slower cruise. He passed back over the heads of the assembled police force _just_ as Thundercracker hit the appropriate airspeed-

The blue Seeker swept so low and so accurately over the wall it was a bare handsbreadth between his underside and the jagged walltop. It was almost as if he'd thrust his nosecone through an invisible balloon; the air deformed around him and trailed in a shock-front away from his wings, and the painful _boom_ that followed the visible disturbance a moment or two later could be felt right through the fuselage.

The sonic shockwave shattered every window in the locality, and Starscream resisted the urge to laugh out loud as the Blue operatives all fell about in disarray, hands over audios and trailing streamers of coolant and energon, leaving their weaponry unstaffed – Thundercracker was already wheeling about for another run, purplish laser fire raining down from his broad wings. It left the gate completely unattended. _Perfect_. He gunned his thrusters, and made his own approach, focussing his cannons on the two small artillery emplacements on the walltop.

_Aw, no fun._ The attendant mechs had already jumped for it, rather than sit and face the wrathful several-hundred-degree-heat of Starscream's lasers. The red Seeker splashed a little high-intensity laser-fire around the artillery itself, melting controls and emitters into useless lumps of molten metal, and the heavy doors, but didn't hang around to inspect his handiwork. There was plenty of quarry inside that would be worth chasing…

Down by the main entrance, Forceps briefly appraised the door. Solid, heavy, massive alloys, all welds and rivets… Starscream and Thundercracker's combined firepower had blackened and dented it, but it still formed an impregnable barrier between the plant and the police, and the Seekers were far too busy tearing the place up inside to come back and help remove it altogether. "Looks like it's down to us to finish the job, then," she commented, dryly.

"We'll never get _that_ open," Boxer groused.

"Not if you just stand there staring at it like some half-sparked scrapheap, we won't," Forceps barked, already pressing her shoulder up against it and putting her considerable strength into a push. "Come on, put your back into it! Hardline, you too!"

Boxer pursed his lips, looking less than impressed at being told what to do by a _civilian _– Hardline offered a wry grin and an apologetic one-shouldered shrug. Starscream's null-rays had killed the motors holding the gates closed, so all that was against them was the sheer _weight_ of the massive structure… All three machines were struggling, power converters whining with effort, by the time they finally managed to get the huge slabs of metal to move, squealing back along their tracks as if wounded.

"Good job I came along," Forceps snarled, staticky with effort, watching from the periphery of her vision as the gap slowly widened. "Just the little bit of extra strength you needed…"

Boxer made a noise that could have meant anything, all his own energy going on moving, not speaking.

Hardline was first through the widening gap, and squeals of alarm issued from behind the doors – apparently the Codustral employees hadn't anticipated the arrival of such a heavyweight.

"_Nice of you to finally join the party!_" Starscream commented, sweeping overhead and adding to his tally of arrests (although arrest was a little tenuous, he was just mowing them down in big swathes and apparently leaving it for the lower ranks to do the actual cuffing and reading of rights). "_If I'd known you were actually going to turn up, I'd have been more serious about saving you some_!"

"Oh, wouldn't have liked to spoil your fun," Hardline replied, gruffly, casually sweeping away the little cluster of addicts that had bravely (but ultimately futilely) gone against him. "Let's just get the place cleaned up, shall we?"

With just one purpose in mind, flier and tank moved steadily down the main artery towards the centre of the plant. The Chief Inspector was wielding his cannon with an accuracy that would have been lethal if not for the fact that it was filled solely with detergent. Still, high-pressure soapy water was just as effective at incapacitating a machine as Starscream's nullrays, and between them the pair were cutting a swathe through the assembled Codustral loyalists.

The whole operation very quickly turned into more of a "mopping up" exercise, in both senses of the word. Once downed by Hardline's water-cannon, or Starscream's null-rays, most of the fallen addicts very quickly folded and gave up, allowing themselves to be put into cuffs and guided away with barely the slightest whisper of complaint. It annoyed those who'd been looking forward to a running gun-battle, but proved that most of Calibrator's "staff" weren't fighters and had probably been roped into fighting with the threat of cutting their supplies off.

Pulsar had made her own fair share of arrests, but was now feeling distinctly surplus to requirements. It had very quickly become less 'arrest' and more 'herd up the stragglers', now the primary assault force had moved deeper into the plant in search of the genuine loyalists.

Celerity had performed a quick team reassignment, and dispatched half the constables to work on rooting out anyone who might be hiding in the perimeter district. Pulsar's assigned area had already been comprehensively swept by Hardline – as evidenced by the soapy floor, which made her skid – and so far she'd found only one small, terrified protoform, who'd all but thrown himself at her feet and _pleaded_ to be arrested. After that one, though… nothing. She'd continued inward, watching in the periphery of her vision as Longbeam did the same in the zone on her right, and Whitesides struggled briefly with a frantic addict in the plot of land on her left. The roar of Seeker engines had faded to a muted thunder in the middle distance; glancing up, she could see the three arrows performing their deadly aerial ballet, all flashing laser fire and graceful aerobatics. She forced herself to ignore the temptation to just stand and _watch_.

She'd managed to cover half her zone, approaching the area where the first of the refineries hulked in the centre of a knot of pipework, when the faint, familiar voice reached her audios. Sounded like… was that _Cali_? The formerly well-spoken voice was almost unintelligible, almost _garbling_, and full of static. The Policebot ducked down behind a rickety old wall, before she could be seen, and sneaked closer.

And almost walked _smack_ into Siphon. By some weird quirk of fate – perhaps Primus _was _watching over her, after all – the tanker had his back to her, and Pulsar sucked back a gasp of alarm and ducked back behind her low wall before he had the chance to notice her.

"Siphon? Siphon, where are you? I need you! Get here now!" The fracturing voice turned out not to belong to Calibrator in person, but rather came over the radio; she sounded like she was on the verge of outright panic. "This is our last chance to get out of here, and I need you with me!"

"We can't abandon the place-… Cali, we can't!" the tanker pleaded, miserably, running his fingers over the control board in what was almost a parody of a comforting caress. "All that work, we can't just-"

"If we don't get out of here _now_, we never will," the analyst interrupted, helplessly. "We can start again, if we can't salvage anything here, but we have to get out of here before they catch us. All three warbirds are in the air. Fatigue is too deep in the fighting, and Deuce is too high. We're the only two left, and we've lost control of the situation. We have to get out!"

"What about the backups?" he pleaded. "Fire up the backup generator and close the field-"

"There's too many inside our borders! Have you seen the way they're destroying our defences?" Cali's voice fractured into frightened static, briefly. "They're mowing our people down like weeds. We can't hope to repel that sort of firepower. If we try and re-initialise the damping baffle, all we'll do is trap ourselves behind it. Please, Siphon. Help me. We have to move."

_She keeps saying 'We'_, Pulsar noticed. _Is Siphon closer to this than just one of her goons? _

"All right, all right. Stay calm, Cali. I'm on my way. I'll be right with you-…"

There was the sound of shifting plates, reconfiguring armour, and when Pulsar sneaked a glimpse around the edge of the wall the tanker had transformed to his alt-form and was moving smoothly and silently down the long aisles towards the side of the plant, shielded from prying eyes by the layers of piping above him.

Pulsar seized her chance – he might lead her to Cali, and she could ping someone for backup once she knew where the ringleader was – and as silently as she could manage, gave chase.

0o0o0o0o0

All three Seekers had come together in the same portion of sky, by now. They were working to their own patterns, twisting and dipping wings and somehow managing to avoid not only each other but also each others' laser fire.

"Screamer! I've got your tractor friend pinned down here!" Skywarp chirped. "Want me to off him for you? I've got a couple of nice little heat-seekers with his name all over 'em."

Starscream made an inarticulate noise of disgust. "You 'off' him and I'll 'off' _you_," he threatened, abandoning Hardline's team to look after themselves. "He's _mine_…!"

"Psh, touchy!" Skywarp wheeled around and got out of the way anyway. "Calibrator's down here somewhere, too, you want to try deal with her while you're at it, or do you think I might just be competent enough to do that?"

"You go after the skinny one, Warp," Thundercracker instructed, chasing Starscream. "Else we'll lose her. I think I better stick with Screamer, or he's just gonna get himself murdered again."

"Oh, so _I_ don't get any backup, even though _I'm_ the one going after the ringleader?"

"…you need backup to deal with a _femme_?"

"It's not just a femme, that stupid pipeline's gonna be with her," Skywarp grumbled, as if to excuse himself, but was already veering away in the direction he guessed the analyst had taken. "Fine, I'll manage on my own, _again_."

Something _ping_ed against his firewalls. Positioning data? He looked more closely at the ground, and spotted the tanker – speeding towards Codustral's distant border, away from the fighting – and a few astro-seconds behind him was a chip of white-and-blue armour.

_Should have __known__ she'd be in it somewhere_, he thought, amusedly, dipped his wings and gave chase.

His departure was ignored by his wing-mates – Starscream had _far_ more important things to do. Like some sort of hellish steel peregrine, he simply cut his engines and _fell_ from the sky, arms outstretched, fingers clawed, lips open in a silent howl of rage.

The caterpillar tractor had no inkling of what was descending like scarlet doom above him until – at the very last second, when it was far too late for him to realise what was happening and dodge – the Seeker gunned his engines with a falcon shriek of power.

Fatigue's gaze shot upwards, lips open in an _oh_ of shock-

They _slammed_ together with a shriek of twisting metal and fracturing plates, armour screaming as it ground together. Momentum allowed even the lightly-built flier to take the tractor right flat on the ground, and Starscream had delivered three vicious punches to his face before Fatigue recovered enough of his wits to throw him off.

"Why the _slag_ won't you just _die_?" Fatigue roared, grabbing for him, but Starscream was already back on his feet, cannons singing hotly.

"I guess I'm just _inconsiderate_," the flier spat back, bringing his nullrays up-

Fatigue kicked out just in time, sweeping blue thrusters out from under his opponent, and Starscream's shot went wide, strafing past Thundercracker and missing him by a hairsbreadth, and exploding a crate of old parts. Debris showered down like a hail of hot shrapnel.

"Then this time I'll make sure I finish the job," the tractor promised, bringing his weight hard down onto the pale wings and transforming his arm into some sort of mining tool. "The only way you'll get out of here is in a couple of thousand tiny bits!"

"Hey, how about take on someone who can actually fight back?" A streak of bright lilac fire strafed across his face, sizzling close enough to singe the pale enamel.

Fatigue growled and made a swing at him, but the agile Thundercracker was _just _out of arm's reach. "How about you come a bit closer, then, you skinny coward?"

"Ohh no, you don't get me _that_ way," Thundercracker scolded, half-amused, delivering a flurry of highly-accurate shots to a dozen joints in his armour.

A deep growl simmered up out of Fatigue's vocaliser, but he still didn't shift his weight. "You'll run out of power eventually, _Decepticon_," he taunted, hefting his mallet. "If that's the best you can do, I'll be getting back to business with your brother, now. You'll get your turn in good time."

Getting hit by a piledriver of _that_ size wouldn't just _hurt_, it'd probably comprehensively destroy half his cortex, Starscream realised – but his null-rays were still pinned. Thundercracker was getting valiantly closer, trying to keep distracting the big bastard, scattering shots of white-hot laser-fire over him, but even though his attention was spaced between both Seekers, Fatigue still hadn't got _off_ him.

_Got to think of something NOW Starscream,_ he told himself, urgently, watching as Fatigue swung an arm and clipped a trailing wingtip, staggering Thundercracker to one knee and throwing his aim off. _Let's see, the weight's mostly bearing down on your wings, you can still move your legs- _

Even as the mallet was descending towards his head, Starscream jerked his feet up, and gunned his thrusters right in the giant's face.

Fatigue gave a long hideous bellow of pain – 'blood curdling' would be an appropriate Earthly phrase, Starscream considered – and the howl rose in sickening pitch as the blinding white heat from the blue thrusters blistered first the paint and then the underlying alloy of his faceplates. The giant threw himself backwards, lurching his weight frantically away from the source of the pain and freeing his opponent's wings.

Starscream lunged to his feet and backed up until he was just out of reach, but he needn't have bothered. A fading yellow glow pooled out from around Fatigue's fingers, and droplets of melted alloy had scattered down across his heavy abdomen-

Lips set into a thin line of anger, Starscream picked up a convenient, sharp bit of scrap metal, and sauntered closer. "Any last requests?" he asked, his voice descending to a poisonous hiss.

"_…oh__…__ slag… you…_" The agonised words choked out of the broken creature's vocaliser.

"How about slag _you_?" Starscream snapped back, hefting his stake. "This is for _Warp_," he snarled, bringing the metal down hard across his opponent's brutalised face and exploding his one remaining optic crystal. "And for _Sepp_." The next blow cut across the tractor's vulnerable throat, turning a groan into a thin hiss of static. "And for _me_." He twirled the stake very briefly and stabbed it down like a sword into the top of Fatigue's spinal complex.

A spasm hard enough to jerk the stake right out of Starscream's hands passed violently through the fallen machine, and he slumped slowly sideways to the ground.

"Is he dead?" Thundercracker wondered, advancing warily.

"Not quite," Starscream confirmed, darkly, examining a second piece of old scaffolding and approaching the tractor from the opposite side. "I'd ask if you wanted the honours, but I'm feeling particularly selfish today."

"No, no, go ahead. I wouldn't want to spoil your fun," Thundercracker confirmed, darkly, taking a step back out of the way.

"You wouldn't kill me," Fatigue wheezed, his broken vocaliser spitting static. "You _won't_ kill me. It's not what you Policebots do-!"

"Probably true." Starscream lifted his piece of scaffold higher. "Except you're forgetting one thing?"

"What?"

Actuators whined softly as the red Seeker gathered all his strength behind the final blow. "We're. Still. Decepticons…!"

0o0o0o0o0

…It was a quiet, unpleasant little voice that attracted Forceps' attention.

The perimeter had grown quiet, so she'd followed at a respectable distance as the assault front moved towards the centre of the plant, keeping herself out of the way and patching injuries as needed. She didn't particularly _like _the place – the muted noises in the distance were making the avenues of pipes increasingly sinister, and even before the words had drifted to her audios she'd sensed she wasn't going to be able to keep away from the frontline for much longer.

"_…look, Police, you can either sit still, and I'll make it a bit less painful, or you can keep on fighting and it'll just get more and more uncomfortable, see_?"

Forceps narrowed her optics; the voice was unpleasantly familiar. One she'd heard just the once before, but once had been more than enough. She followed it, softening her footfalls to as close to inaudible as she could manage, but needn't have bothered. The source of the words was too busy to be paying attention to the potential for being stalked by large green surgeons.

Whether he'd got better with his aim or the helicopter had just got that smidgen too low, it was impossible to tell, but regardless of _how_, Deuce had managed to get Nightsun out of the air. Around the corner, and mostly obscured by a wall and a tight clustering of overhead pipes, the truck was half-mauling half-dragging the struggling Policebot towards a storage facility and Primus-only-knew what sort of ugly fate. The lightly-built flier was already looking considerably more the worse for wear – his jaw hung slack, apparently no longer able to close it properly, and his convulsing arms were propped against the truck's forward canopy, trying feebly to push him off.

Deuce seemed unimpressed by the feeble show of defiance, taunting and scolding by turns as he dragged his prey along. He had already been busy wreaking hell on the delicate rotor-blades, kinking two into a concertina, the other two twisted into a sick parody of a bow, and the small laser-knife he had in his hand promised more long orns of carving and snipping and slow destruction until Nightsun's spark finally gave out.

"Put him down," Forceps instructed, sternly, attracting the attention of both mechs.

Deuce sneered up at her. "Well well, if it isn't the gunless wonder. Hey, _nursebot_," he leered at her. "Lovely to see you again, and looking _so well_! You must have found an _excellent_ surgeon! I tell you what, how about you stand back and let me finish off this waste of good armour, and I might even be persuaded to spare you, this time." He licked the knife, meaningfully. "I always wanted a playmate."

Forceps bristled. The fact the truck was probably so high on Blue he was right out of the stratosphere was no excuse for this. "I told you to put him down," she repeated. "I won't tell you again."

"And I told you, no," Deuce stared her out, his lip wrinkled in distaste. "I won this, fair and square. I'm entitled to do what I want with it!" As if to demonstrate, he lowered the knife, and casually snipped off one of Nightsun's antennae; the helicopter jerked against him and struggled with a briefly renewed vigour.

Forceps felt something inside her _snap_. She was not one for violence, but this casual brutality would not go unpunished. "In that case, I believe you owe me a rematch!" she said, loudly, advancing on the delivery truck. She planted a massive hand down on Deuce's shoulder and span him round, forcefully separating him from his prey, then put all her considerable strength behind her arm and delivered a splintering punch right in his faceplate.

Deuce _howled _in shocked pain and fell away from them, staggering as far away as he could manage before his knees buckled and he landed awkwardly, half on his thigh and half on his aft. "How _dare_ you…!" his voice had gone shrill in shocked outrage. "_How DARE you hit me_!!" He snatched a pistol from his subspace, but only managed to jitter the laser sight all the way across her face and scorch a dull black line across her shoulder before a kick sent it spinning out of reach.

"I'm sorry, didn't I _win _this, fair and square?" Forceps spat, chasing him. "Don't you make the mistake of thinking that because I have no _gun_ that I am _unarmed_ and _harmless_."

The giant green monstrosity was already bristling with inbuilt surgical tools, and Deuce's nerve failed him. He threw himself upright and managed a few lurching steps away before a quick slash from a surgical laser sliced through the back of his right knee, cutting the hydraulics and effectively hamstringing him, staggering him back to the floor with a whimper.

"Get _away_ from me!" he shrilled, his optics wide and blazing vivid green with fright, and kicked out at her. "_Leave me alone_!"

She narrowed her optics and snipped his other knee. "No kicking," she instructed, softly, watching him flail and sob and try uselessly to reach his pistol…

It didn't even take half a breem of work to completely subdue the truck. She carved him up with a beautifully surgical precision – still completely in one piece, but with a series of neat little _snips_ that cut all his primary actuator relays and effectively immobilized him. "Are we even, now?" she wondered, softly, referring to their last meeting, which had left her almost as totally paralysed.

Deuce ignored the question, and just continued to bleat about how unfair it was and how dare she do this and he was going to call the full force of vengeance – and the law! – down on her.

"Look, either you cease that infuriating whining," she suggested, softly, very close to his audio, "or I shall take steps to neutralise your vocaliser as well. Is that clear?"

Deuce swallowed his latest complaint with a strange little _urble_, and fell obediently silent.

"Good boy," she praised, dryly, gathering him up off the floor and manhandling him into place over one shoulder. "Now." She crouched by the injured helicopter, and offered him a hand. "You still functioning okay, Nightsun?" she asked, gently.

Nightsun clutched for her arm, and nodded, shakily. "I'll live."

"Come on," she hauled him to his feet; he made a valiant effort at standing on his own, but was reduced to clinging to her like a sparkling trying its legs for the first time. "We'll find you somewhere safe to park your aft until this has blown over and we can get you to hospital."

"Should be helping," he argued, tottering along beside her.

"You are helping," she confirmed, and gave him a wry smile. "You helped me remove this jumbled heap of spare parts from the game before he got the chance to slip the net."

0o0o0o0o0

When Starscream finally got bored and turned away from his quarry, it was to find the Chief Inspector standing nearby, arms folded across his broad chest, lounging against a convenient wall.

"Are you two quite done?" the riot tank asked, calmly, watching the pair of Seekers approach.

Starscream glanced over his shoulder at the greying heap of caterpillar treads, and nodded. "We're done."

"Good. Because I could do with a hand over here."

"You're not going to arrest us?" Starscream's lips pulled into a sneer.

Hardline shrugged. "Self-defence, so far as I saw," he said, offhand. "Where's Skywarp?"

"Chasing Calibrator, last I heard," Thundercracker supplied, opening a channel to his absentee wing-mate. "Hey, Warp? Where have you got to?"

"_Oh at fragging LAST_," came the exultation, loud enough through the channel to make the blue Seeker wince from the feedback and rub his auditory antenna. "_I was beginning to think you were NEVER coming!_" Triangulation data followed thick and fast.

"Whoa, whoa, steady, Warp," Thundercracker waved his hands, as if it would somehow stop the flood of positioning information. "I asked how you were getting on, not where you were!"

The flood of data slowed, hesitantly. "…_What? You're not coming?_" Skywarp was almost pleading. "_Aw come ON, surely you've dealt with that tractor by now?_"

"…yeah, but only just-"

"_So come on come ON, you guys, they've already left the plant, they're gonna be out of the district as well, soon!_" Skywarp despaired. "_I need you as backup or I'm gonna lose them! If you've kicked that fragging tractor's aft, come help __meee__._"

"Look, I'll try and round some of the guys up," Thundercracker promised, chasing after a departing Starscream. "But we've made a load of arrests so far, there might not be many left without their hands full!"

"_Aw, let the police deal with that load of old rubbish! You and Screamer will do fine! I. Need. Backup!_"

"For now we _are_ police, Skywarp, remember? I know you can't see from that angle, but it says so in big letters right across your wings! And we're already busy-"

"_Augh, TC-! Fine! I'll do it myself! But it's gonna go horribly wrong, I just know it_," Skywarp groaned, snappishly, and cut communications.

0o0o0o0o0

Pulsar's hunt had taken her further than she'd wanted, faster than she'd wanted. They'd already left Codustral a good breem or two ago, and were now racing down a mostly abandoned street lined by derelict old housing towards the next district.

Siphon must have known she was behind him, but didn't seem inclined to react to the knowledge, concentrating on his driving. Calibrator clung to his roof for dear life, her long, spidery fingers pressed into chinks in his armour, but even she didn't seem too disturbed by their pursuer – she'd glanced back once or twice, but as soon as they'd made it past Codustral's perimeter fence she'd lost interest. They were clearly both in silent communication, and obviously didn't care that the territory they were now moving in was claimed by one of the minor factions and fairly hostile to anyone that wasn't a gang-member. Pulsar, on the other hand, was painfully aware of it – Celerity had lost three members of her team in here some vorns ago, and only got out herself by the enamel on her skidplate. (The remains of her officers had been posted back to the force in small portions over the next hundred orns or so. Pulsar didn't want her own return to the station to be in pieces in a cardboard box.) It was only the fact that she'd got this far already, and didn't want to waste the effort, that compelled her to keep moving forwards.

_Got to stop him somehow,_ she thought, helplessly. _Head him off, or turn him back, or something! But how in Primus' name do I do that? I can't stop and shoot him, because he'll be gone before I can draw my pistol. Got to get ahead of him, somehow…_

She gunned her engines and put on a dramatic, desperate burst of acceleration. _Get past him before he gets to the rift, got to get past him before he gets to the rift._ Once he was across bridge over the jagged ravine that formed the border, and into the neighbouring district, he'd be lost. She was already far away from her comfort zone, could feel the hostile optics of unfriendly machines watching her, and no-one seemed to be answering her pings for backup. All she could do was try and head him back into their home turf, cut him off, force him to double back on himself. She nosed closer, wincing as his anti-gravity emitters kicked loose detritus into her forward sensors but determined to just get past him.

Siphon was not so stupid as he often came across, however, and he had an excellent, unimpeded view of the road ahead. He didn't react to the advancing policewoman until it was a fraction of an astro-second too late for her to counter it, and deliberately fishtailed, dramatically, clipped her front end _just_ hard enough to send her into a skid-

-right through a gap in the crumbling retaining fence, and over the rift. The huge fissure in the ground yawned up beneath her.

She transformed mid-fall, snatching helplessly for anything that might save her – the broken remains of a bridge, old power lines, the crumbling rock-face, anything_. _

_Focus, FOCUS, _she pleaded, inwardly, but her phobias screamed louder than her sense of logic. This was the sum of all her worst fears – great heights, and falling from them – rolled into one single agonising whole.

The jagged ground rushed up to meet her face, and impending painful doom screamed in her ears.


	33. Chapter 33

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter ****Thirty-Three**

**Disclaimer:** As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. (...Except where they're obviously OCs, which Hasbro would be silly to want to claim.)

**A/N:** Once again, I have to say "well, this and the next chapter were going to be one single thing, but it got all monster silly long and I had to divide it". But! you will be relieved to hear, the next chapter (34) is the last, aside from the epilogue, which is all fangirly and horrible, so you may want to skip it. So! I hope to get the last two bits up in the next couple of days, and the _magnum opus _is finished.

…And I can (finally) get some sleep. :snores: (:is joking:)

I apologise profusely for being a doofus and adding cast members that I'm having a real hard time thinking how to relate to the plot. I knew I shouldn't have dragged so many characters in, particularly canon ones, but my brain has already gone _a'splode_. :( Maybe I'll do better next time!

...I'll be quiet and get on with the story, yes? ;) And if you couldn't see THIS coming, well, I don't think I could be much more blatant. :P

Edit - Typos: corrected! Well, most of them.

* * *

_...Guess this is Primus' way of letting me know I outlived my welcome._

Pulsar curled down on herself and offlined her optics, not really wanting to have to see the ground the very last instant before it made its final fatal meeting with her nose.

_Goodbye world. Nice knowing you._

…although… how strange… she'd not realised how much impending doom would sound like a Seeker's engine…

A hand closed on her ankle, and falling transitioned into flying an astro-second before she splashed herself across the jagged ground in a brightly-coloured pool of energon and coolant and chips of pale armour. "Told you I could catch you," an insufferably smug voice said, amusedly, its owner giving her a little tug upwards and letting her attach around his torso. "Thought you didn't like heights, anyway, so what are you doing flinging yourself off them?"

"I knew you were nearby. Just testing your reflexes!" she lied, feebly, cheek pressed up against the comforting, warm curve his cockpit, trying to stop herself shaking, although the latter was a bit of an exercise in futility right now. She wasn't so much _trembling_ as _vibrating_, hard enough for her shoulder-guards to actually be humming.

Skywarp rearranged his arms to stop her sliding, and _snrk_-ed amusedly. "Well, I know you've been itching for a rematch since I completely _owned_ that blue aft of yours the other day…" he observed, and felt a tremor of amusement pass through her. "But now probably isn't the appropriate time for it. We've still got a job to do."

"I can wait. I'm still thinking how I can best return the favour, anyway, it'll give me a bit longer to plan," she agreed, dryly, and dared to glance down over her shoulder… She groaned at a wave of vertigo, feeling her gyroscopes skip nauseatingly in sympathy, and fixed her gaze back onto his chest. He'd climbed _needlessly_ far up, in her (not-so-humble) opinion. "Can you see them?"

"Not yet-"

"You mean you let them escape?"

He narrowed his optics and glowered at her. "You _want_ me to let you splat on the dirt from somewhere high up?" he challenged, and felt her reflexively tighten her grip. "Because I _could_ have just chased him, you know."

"Well if you weren't quite so high up and far away, maybe we'd stand a better chance at spotting them-" she grumbled, quietly.

"Look, if you _really_ want me to dump you on top of something really high and inaccessible, I will," he scolded, and felt her tighten her grip. "I might even forget to fetch you back down, if you don't stop whining."

"Good luck getting me to let go," she mumbled against his chest.

He snerked, quietly, and ran the fingers of one hand down her side. "I know all your tricks, remember?" he said, softly, feeling her fingers flex slackly against his shoulders.

"I'm going to stop playing fair one of these days," she breathed, trying to get away from his teasing fingers. "You going to stop trying fragging about and try spot them, any time soon?"

He made a wordless little noise of pique. "All right, you're the sharpshooter, _you_ spot them," he grumbled, and had flipped her over in his arms before she realised what he was about to do.

Pulsar squealed unashamedly and blared her siren in alarm, flailing her arms and clawing backwards, trying to secure a new hold on him. "Aai, Skywarp, Skywarp no, don't do-… don't do this!" she yelped, scrabbling her fingers across the arm around her chest. "I don't want-"

"Ssh." One of the restraining arms released a hand to cover her mouth, holding just hard enough to coax her to be quiet. "You have one of the most powerful engines in the sky at your back," a voice reminded, softly. "And the only reason I would drop you is if you startle me by _bleeping_ again. So keep your sirens off, and you're okay. Okay?"

She _mmf!_-ed urgently and shook her head, trying to retreat backwards into him, latching her fingers around his hand.

"Look, just focus on the ground," he instructed. "Not where we are in relation to it. Focus on the ground, and on your quarry. You're not up in the air, you're looking for little machines in a little city."

She huffed hot air from her vents, and managed a little faint _okay_ when he released her mouth.

"Now. Can you see them?" he wondered, scouring the ground below. Siphon and Cali had left the main street – apparently trying to evade aerial observation – but there didn't look like there were very many places to hide _inside_, so they'd have to be on an alleyway, or something like it.

"Nothing yet," Pulsar replied, quietly, trying to keep control of her pumps. "I hope they haven't crossed the bridge."

"I bet the fragger's gone," Skywarp groused, after almost a breem of fruitless searching. "I bet he's inside or in a storm-drain or something-"

"I guess he must- hey, wait… no. No!" Pulsar yelped, urgently, actually letting go of his arms and pointing. "No, I see him! There, there! See!? At his current speed he'll reach the bridge in half a breem. We've got to get him before he leaves the district!"

"Ah, oodles of time, then." Skywarp dipped his angle, and began his descent. "What's so important about the district past the bridge, anyway?"

"It's neutral territory, pretty derelict, not many machines in residence, and there's a million and one places they could hide. We could spend _orns_ combing the place and they'd still slip the net."

"Which makes it different to here because…?" He was already gunning for the bridge.

"This land is claimed. It's not neutral territory. The gang that lives here won't stand for this sort of intrusion for long, especially if it's by a rival drugs baroness."

Skywarp chuckled at the description. "You're giving them _way_ too much credit in all this," he said, dryly. "You're going to have to hang on for yourself, now," he instructed, calmly, manhandling her back so she was facing him. "I need my arms free."

"Why, what are you going to do?" She found her preferred seams in his armour, anyway – around his shoulders, somewhere where she could get a good grip, and only tickle a _little _bit – and snugged her fingers down into them, hooked her feet up over his lower legs.

"Gonna kill the bridge," he replied, offhand, already making his approach run.

"What?!" She flashed him an alarmed look. "That's the only way out of the district on this side!"

"Oh, yeah, because it's really getting a _whoole _lot of use, right now," he scoffed back. "I bet you can see the footprints in the dust _from orbit_. We'll call it collateral damage." She gave him a pleading look, and he cast his optics skywards, exaggeratedly. "And if it makes you stop chewing on my audios, I'll only kill it a little bit. All right?"

"…right." She could _feel_ his weaponry charging, tucked so close between them; the air simmered with ions, made static prickle across her derma, sizzling between them and making her spark flicker in response. Wasn't an _entirely_ bad feeling…

He skimmed down along the bridge, and scattered just enough laser fire over it to make it impassable. The structure _groaned_ as if in pain, and clunked quietly as components destabilised and slumped against each other, but overall it held itself up. "Let's see him get across _there_ in a hurry," Skywarp observed, amusedly, depositing his passenger clumsily to her feet just at the mouth of the bridge. "We'll divide and conquer," he instructed, already wheeling skywards again. "You check down here, see if they're hiding under anything. I can cover a bigger area from the sky. Right?"

"Right," she agreed, shakily, drawing her pistol from her subspace and trying to regain a steady footing.

"And _don't_ try to be a hero and try and take the pipeline on alone again," he added, over the comm. "You find him, you yell for backup!"

"He's not so big," she argued. "I'm pretty accurate, I can put him down-"

"That doesn't matter, he'll be wearing his baffle and your shot will go wide," Skywarp argued. "You might manage one shot, but he won't hang around for you to adjust your aim, he'll just flatten you."

"So what makes you think you'll get him if _I_ can't?" She slunk along the wall, warily. "We've got the same class of weapon, yours are just bigger."

Skywarp must have been pretty serious, because he didn't even snicker at the dirty implications of her comment. "I'm airborne, and I've got firepower to spare, _and_ if push comes to shove I can just stomp on him. If _you_ get into a physical argument, he'll snap you right in half." There was a brief hesitation, and he added. "Same with Cali. Find her, ping me. Right?"

"Oh come _on_, even _I'm_ big enough to take on Cali, surely-?"

"Ping me when you find her," he repeated, a little more firmly. "Her and that crackpot pipeline have something really _weird_ going on between 'em – and I mean _really_ weird, even more than us two – and if _she's_ about, he won't be too far behind."

"Fair point," she accepted, grimly, peeking around a corner and edging out into the street, clutching her pistol to her chest.

Skywarp's engines had faded to a soft drone in the background and Pulsar had covered a fair distance when the little black figure slipped out of a side-street and began to make its way closer. She froze, fully aware that she was a pale coloured stick of armour plating that stuck out just as much as the little stick of dark coloured plating the other side of the street, and sure enough Calibrator glanced up, and their gazes met. The analyst visibly startled, and dove into a side-street.

-_Found her-_, Pulsar hastily pinged at Skywarp. -_Make arrest?-_

-_Good to go-_, he responded. -_Watch yourself! Still no Siphon.-_

-_Will do_.-

Even as she made her careful way towards the alleyway, Pulsar knew what she was turning herself into. Calibrator had lingered just long enough in view to get the Policebot to follow her, which Pulsar had oh-so-helpfully obliged by doing. And she knew Siphon lurked close by. _Uncomfortably _close by. Watching, waiting. Exposing herself like this made her more than a little uneasy… But if she had to bait the tanker out so Skywarp could get at him, then fine. She'd be the bait.

Calibrator seemed to be following the same philosophy. The alley was short enough that you could see the rift from the main street, so she had to have known what she was running into, _and _the fact that she'd backed herself into a corner. Steep, graffiti-covered walls corralled her in on either side, and the district rift fell hungrily away behind her. The derelict ground and old retaining fence had crumbled and rusted and rotted away many vorns ago, leaving just a gaping chasm a single footstep out past the rusted surfaces.

"I should advise you that you have the right to remain silent," Pulsar said, gently, doing things by the book anyway. She moved forwards slowly, trying not to spook her former friend. "But anything you do say will be recorded, and may be used in evidence against you. Do you understand?"

Calibrator predictably exercised her rights – still backing up, moving along the less decrepit of the two walls, keeping her back to it so no dark teleporters could sneak up on her. She seemed to be thinking of trying to scale the rift itself – her long thin fingers would be ideal for scrambling over the broken rock-faces.

"I won't shoot you, Cali," Pulsar went on, lowering her pistol. "But if you don't come peacefully, I'm entitled to use force."

…then she realised that Calibrator wasn't looking at her, but just past her shoulder. _Damn. _She'd been hoping to hear Siphon approach, but it looked like she'd been just a little bit _too good_ as bait-

"Hey, _femme_!"

The voice startled her; she leaped around just in time to see Siphon loom up beside her.

"I still owe you for when you broke my knee," he explained, leering, catching her upper-arm before she could bolt, and twisted instantly into a kick.

The impact didn't just twist her knee the wrong way, it comprehensively shattered a dozen micro-servos inside. She gave a startled cry of pain and tottered backwards on one leg before the joint gave way altogether and pitched her into a wall. _Oh. Oh, __damn__, it hurt. _She caught herself awkwardly, half-suspended on one leg against the wall, her pistol skittering away across the pitted ground, and groaned at the chill of coolant racing down her lower leg, puddling in joint spaces. She concentrated on the relays in her hip and pinched the end of the line off before it could run her system dry.

Siphon continued his advance, slow and self-assured. "Aw, look, you sprang a leak."

Just behind him, Calibrator had stopped her half-hearted attempt at an escape, morbid fascination on her face. What Pulsar found more bothersome was the fact the femme she'd long considered to be a friend looked utterly unconcerned at what Siphon was doing… she managed to focus long enough to send another anxious ping at Skywarp. -_Both here, come ON!_-

"You're such a pain in the aft, femme. How many times do I have to kill you before you'll get the hint and _stay dead_?" Siphon chuckled, weaving his way forwards, back and forth like a fighter fencing for a good hold. "Never mind. We'll do it the simple way, this time." He lifted his hand, and wiggled his incredibly long fingers. "I'll just yank a few essential components out through your mouth. Wouldn't be the first time I've done it. And I can promise that you won't be getting back up afterwards!"

Pulsar closed her mouth and pursed her lips, drawing back away from him. And where was Skywarp?! Siphon already had her pinned down, both metaphorically _and_ literally, now, and the teleport wasn't answering! She sent yet another slightly more frantic ping at Skywarp.

"You can radio your lover all you like, he's not coming," Siphon jeered, sweetly, sensing the reason for her increasing distress, caressing his long fingers up under her chin. "He can't _hear_ you, you see? I'm broadcasting a nice little jamming signal alongside the field baffle. It's really handy knowing a scientist, they can make all sorts of little toys to make life easier. But I guess we better be on the safe side anyway…" He snatched out a hand and seized her antennae, and yanked forwards even as she yelped in alarm and jerked backwards in an attempt to jolt her head free.

The fact he'd grabbed her positioning antenna and not her communications array was no barrier to the flash of silvery agony that shot all through her cortex and turned her vision into static. There was a long, slow _tearing_ sensation, pulling all the way upwards through her throat as deeply-anchored fibres snapped and power wires pulled free. She squawked in a mixture of pain and anger and thrashed her fingers down across him, leaving a set of brilliant yellow finger gouges across his torso.

Siphon just laughed, and closed his fingers on her wrist. "Now where were we?" he wondered, lowering his voice to a seductive murmur, and trailing the fingers of his free hand over her lips. "You're leaking again," he observed, sweeping a finger through the energon that had followed the loose wires out of the wound behind her alarm blinker, and smirking as he sucked the fingertip clean. "Ahhhh, so delicate. It'll be a shame to pull you to pieces."

Pulsar squirmed under his pinioning weight, trying to push him off, but her bad knee wasn't letting her get a lot of leverage. His clawing fingers were all over her again, prying at her lips, dancing a sinister pattern across her derma in an effort to get her distracted enough to release the way she'd locked her jaw closed-… Had to get Skywarp. Had to get him here, because it was only a matter of time before Siphon succeeded in getting his fingers right down her intakes. Her frenetic communications were going unheard, and she couldn't very well open her mouth and _shout_-

_Of course…!_ She was a member of the police, and _all_ Policebots came pre-equipped with-

She dropped the gain on her hearing, and endured an astro-second or two more of his mauling while she recalibrated and ensured she was cool… then cycled a hot pulse of energy through her sirens, flashing her alarm lights into his face. Siphon gave a _yipe_! of pain and dropped her as if she was hot, covering his audios and tripping backwards over his own feet.

"Primus!" he swore, shooting a hateful glare at her. "Okay, time for games is over." He snatched the unattended pistol up off the street and tracked the red laser-sight very briefly up over her abdomen-

There was the low _thump_ of air molecules deforming, and Skywarp exploded out of nowhere, swearing noisily and scattering a barrage of laser fire around Siphon, throwing the tanker's aim wild and forcing him into a hasty retreat. They crashed out into the street, Siphon fleeing with the enraged Seeker hot on his tail.

Pulsar swapped a look with Calibrator.

"Goodbye, Pulse," Calibrator said, bowed fractionally, and managed a single step before there was a long, low, creaking _groan_ from somewhere beneath her feet…

Skywarp's deluge of laser fire hadn't made any significant hits on _Siphon_, but it had apparently hit something critical in the ground. From somewhere inside the planet itself came another miserable long moan of inanimate pain, and the ground shuddered once before a dozen derelict internal supports gave way. The horizontal surface suddenly elected to be a slowly descending slope, pointing down into the rift. Calibrator ended up on her front on the floor, scrabbling her fingers for purchase.

Another series of dull, booming _crunches_ sounded up from inside, and the ground sheared across the middle, walls toppling inwards. The underlying, decrepit old sublevel storage basement coughed dust into the atmosphere, and obediently swallowed all it was offered – walls, ground, supports, and the two alarmed machines trying uselessly to kick and scramble their way to safety.

0o0o0o0o0

Siphon flattened himself against a wall, and huffed quietly for cool air.

Ducking into a derelict series of old warehouses, the small tanker had temporarily managed to give his pursuer the slip. He could hear the fitful stop-start of engines as Skywarp half-paced half-flew frustratedly about looking for him, but guessed that so long as he could still hear engines, and they were still in the distance, he was pretty safe. He took the lull in the chase to vent the excess heat out of his systems and cool stressed components.

Once the engine noise had faded into the middle distance, Siphon took his chance. Finding a better hiding place was his top priority. He edged his way along the building's inner wall, keeping back in the shadows on the off chance Skywarp _was_ skulking about and the engines he could hear belonged to a distant shuttle, self-preservation taking over from his concerns for Cali. She was probably dead, anyway, probably slid all the way down into the ravine and gone _crunch_ at the bottom. He sure wasn't about to try and scale all the way down the treacherous wall just to find out, not with this crazy Seeker swooping about…!

Peeking through a gap in the ruined wall, he could see the bridge. It still smouldered a little, but he considered that if he waited a while until his pursuer had given up looking – may be an orn or two, but he'd always been fairly patient – he could still cross it, if he moved slowly and carefully enough.

He emerged carefully from the broad rear doors, and hesitated to check his surroundings…

There was a _slap_ of exploding air and the roar of thrusters right by his audios, and before he could even turn around a pair of powerful hands had seized him under his arms and yanked him into the air. He gave a very unbefitting shriek of terror and flailed his feet, as if he could somehow get them to reconnect with the ground-

"You know, I heard you were jealous of me," Skywarp said, sweetly, right next to the tanker's audios. "Playing at being a powerful faction leader, trying to instil fear into the sparks of the public, mauling all over my squeaky little Policebot… So I figured I'd let you sample the one thing you were missing! Can't be a Decepticon Seeker without flying, after all!"

"Put-… put me down!" Siphon wailed, kicking.

It was only after the words had left his vocal processor that he realised it had been the wrong thing to say.

"You want to go it alone? Aw, all right." Skywarp exaggerated a disappointed tone… and let go.

Right over the rift.

"Figure I won't be seeing you at the bottom after all!" the teleport called cheerfully after the helpless screams that rose up from the rift.

0o0o0o0o0

Five floors down from street level, the debris had finally stopped falling.

Pulsar lay half-buried in rubble, and feebly coughed dust from her vents. _Ow. Oh, __ow__._ She winced and flexed her banged-up shoulders, forced herself to sit up, and survey the wreckage; between them, they'd more than half-filled the large room with broken masonry, and an old landing stage gaped like a mouth onto the rift, a couple of metres behind her, its decayed old doors hanging back off their hinges like broken teeth. Calibrator lay motionless a few arm-lengths away, miraculously free of debris except for where a fallen pylon lay across one of her arms. _Better get her out-_ Pulsar thought, grimly, and went to slide herself out from her own pile of detritus-

Pain flashed up her leg, and she realised her damaged joint had twisted around in such a way that she was now pretty well anchored. She groaned, irritably. _Great. And it'll take forever to dig myself out of here. _She shovelled a handful or two of the loose grit out of the way, and was beginning on the larger chunks of broken concrete when she heard the soft moan from behind.

"Cali?" she looked back over her shoulder, and muggy green optics flickered at her.

"Pulse-…" Calibrator acknowledged, and huffed a small dust cloud. "That was, ah… _ow_. Exciting."

"Are you hurt?"

Calibrator groaned, examining her pinned arm, but nodded. "Nothing a little bit of brain work won't fix," she confirmed, digging detritus out from under her arm, and after a few astro-seconds of work and a snarl of effort, she managed to slip her thin limb out from under the pylon. "Ahhh… there we go…" she hissed, wincing as energon streamed back into the pinched-off fuel lines, and flexed her fingers.

"What are you going to do now?" Pulsar wondered, quietly, watching as the analyst got back to her unsteady feet.

"Well, much as I hate to disappoint, but 'help get you out' isn't on my list," Calibrator smiled, brokenly. "I'll be taking my leave of you, now. If it's any consolation, I hope they find you before you bleed right out."

Pulsar dabbed fingers to the still-oozing wound behind her side-light, and winced at the grit that had coated itself over the half-dried fuel.

"It's a shame," Calibrator went on, softly, picking her way carefully backwards over the rocks. "I wasn't lying when I said I wanted a confidant, Pulse. We could have ruled together. The scientist, and her advisor." Her lips pulled into a scornful smile. "But you'd rather reject my offer in favour of playing with the jet, of course. Would rather tangle yourself in the affairs of the opposing faction than hold up your own faction's supposed noble values!"

"Cali, please. Stop this," Pulsar implored, quietly. _Distract her, distract her. Warp will be here any minute, I've got to keep her talking, keep her here._ "I don't want you to be hurt, but they'll catch you eventually, and you've got nowhere to go-"

"Oh, _please_. I just have to climb down the rift walls and get into the tunnels, and then I can make it halfway around the globe unimpeded! Lay low for a vorn or two, get a new protoform, and I can start my way back up the ladder again. I may have been beaten this once, but I'm far from defeated!" She paused, perched atop the biggest heap of rubble like some sort of demon imp. "And if I remember right, you and that moronic teleporting airhead seemed to think you could catch me between just yourselves. Ha! Some hope! Look where it's got you. _Crippled_ and _weaponless_. Which leaves just that big dolt to try and find me. He couldn't find his own aft if you gave him a map!"

"You don't think he's going to be alone for long, do you? His brothers will be along to join the hunt any time soon. Please, Cali, just give yourself up," Pulsar groaned. "Starscream wants your head on a plate, after all the problems you orchestrated, but if you give up peacefully they might manage to keep him from killing you."

"Give up so I can spend the next eternity in a secure institution for the criminally insane, my intellect blunted away to nothing, emotionally crippled?" Calibrator argued, grimly. "I don't think I shall take you up on the offer. It doesn't seem much better than just sitting back and allowing those fliers to dismantle me. I'd rather take my chances!"

"Look, I know Siphon's been leading you on," Pulsar tried one last tactic. Calibrator was still inching her way towards the gaping door, and she had to keep her here, somehow. "I know he's been tricking you into doing all this, I've heard him. We could take this into account, we could reduce your sentence, we could _help you_…"

Calibrator's features twisted into a snarl. "I will have you know that _I_ was all the brains behind this program!" she snapped, insulted. "That stupid tanker never knew his limits, was always aiming higher than he could ever reach, taking the praise for things that were not his to claim! He was _nothing_. He was _less_ than nothing!"

"What did he say to you, Cali? That you were special? Important to him? I know he twisted things to suit his purposes, Calibrator… We can help you, if you want it."

"Oh, you… stupid, worthless little _bike_," Calibrator hissed, poisonously. "Is that what everything always boils down to, to you? Who is sharing their _berth _or their _spark _with who? Ha! Exactly how many have had a ride on _you _now, hmm? Is there anyone left in the station that hasn't sampled your harmonic? You don't even have the common sense to keep things _within your own faction_! What a noble example of the breed, playing around with the _Decepticon elite!_" She smirked triumphantly at the pained way her former friend winced and looked away. "Shed your precious morals faster than the most promiscuous little undercity whore sheds her coverings at the sight of a pretty face. I bet you couldn't tempt him into your dorm fast enough!"

It was painful to have to listen to the words and not argue with them. Skywarp was hardly her _first_ – whatever in the Pit it was they had, now – but then she wouldn't be able to confess to any particular expertise in anything like that, anyway. 'Prissy little prude' was Longbeam's analysis, only a vorn or two ago. But she forced herself to endure the insults, because it was keeping Cali around for those precious few extra seconds, and Skywarp had already pinged her to let her know he was on his way back.

"You never know, once this is all over, maybe he'll still take you in," the analyst cooed, nastily. "Keep you in a cupboard, somewhere, ready and willing for when he feels the need to service his potency!" She smirked. "I don't know if Decepticons have any need for little tarts like you, but at least it'll be a form of employment once the police kick you out."

"This might be your last chance to give up, Cali," Pulsar offered, gently.

"Oh, I don't think so. I think I will be gone, and you will be lucky to be dug out before you grey out altogether," Calibrator said, sweetly, inclining her head and setting her crampon-like fingers into the debris. "Isn't it a shame you have no gun, and can't walk?"

-_Where are you?- _Pulsar pinged the frantic question to Skywarp. -_She's about to leave!-_

Skywarp's return ping was an angry, hasty jumble of mashed-together words. -_Can't TriANGulate YOurPOsition Where are youwhere areyou don'tyou DARE letherescape whereAREyou?-_

Damn, of course. Siphon had torn out half her antennae, and she couldn't put out a triangulation signal. _She_ knew roughly where she was, but she couldn't tell _him_.

Well, that sonic grenade worked well enough last time… and she was running out of time for any other options. _Oh well. No time to reset or recalibrate, but here goes nothing. _

She sucked in as big a draught as cold air as her systems would handle, then blasted her sirens as loud as they could possibly manage to go.

Calibrator staggered under the unexpected onslaught, clapped her hands over her audio receptors and almost matched the infernal noise with a cry of alarm of her own. Debris skidded beneath her feet and she caught herself just shy of the exit.

0o0o0o0o0

Way above, Skywarp had spent half a breem inscribing vapour trails in ever-decreasing circles and getting anxious that Cali had in fact still managed to give them the slip. Starscream and Thundercracker were both (at freaking _last_) on their way, with a half-dozen officers in tow, and he'd been avoiding their questions with an increasing desperation (Primus forbid they turn up and he had to admit to having _neither _target in his possession) when at last there was the distant _whoo-oop_ of a siren from somewhere down below. _At last._

Skywarp homed in on the sound, and the faint flicker of blue light that gleamed out onto the rubble on the broken ledge below, slightly to the west of his position, down in the rift. The little dark figure huddled in the mouth of the storage garage was easily recognised, in spite of the fact the large green optics were offline and the thin, spidery hands were clamped down over auditory vents.

He found himself a toehold, and disengaged his thrusters, settling delicately onto a space barely large enough for him to get his whole foot onto. The owner of the sirens must have seen him land, because the hideous noise at last coughed, and fell silent. Somewhere in the darkness, the dim blue glow from an exhausted pair of optics flickered, and went out. The low hum of air-conditioning fans continued, though, so he figured she must just have gone into stasis. Well, at least she was being kept out of trouble, back there.

Calibrator remained huddled down on herself until he gave her a prod in the upper arm, and she onlined her optics with a weary resignation.

"You gonna come peacefully?" Skywarp coaxed, elevating his voice to be heard over the throbbing afterload of Pulsar's sonic assault, closing his fingers carefully around both her scrawny wrists.

"Don't seem to have a lot of choice left in the matter," Calibrator whispered, head hanging, and didn't put up a struggle as he gathered her out of the debris and swept gracefully up to the buildings above.

"Just in case you forgot, you _still_ have the right to remain silent," Skywarp added, amusedly, as they came up. "But everything you say will _still_ be recorded, and probably _will _be used in evidence against you."

Calibrator closed her mouth, and elected once again to exercise her right to remain silent.


	34. Chapter 34

**Screaming Blue Murder - Chapter Thirty-Four**

**Disclaimer:** As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. (...Except where they're obviously OCs, which Hasbro would be silly to want to claim.)

**A/N:** And here it is! The last proper chapter. Status quo can now resume.

Balrog Roike: I'd been working on the philosophy that Siphon is in fact an overconfident psychopath, and probably thinks he can either make the supplies he needs, once his tanks run out, or threaten and steal it otherwise. (Plus, I knew he was going to bite the big one, and worked on the philosophy he was probably scared enough to briefly forget about it. ;) …That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it.)

Thank you, thank you, _thank you_ to those people who've reviewed and typo-spotted and stuff. :bows down: I don't think I'd have got all the way to the end without you (and the evil side of me that took such morbid joy in scattering cliffhangers through the thing). :love: :hugs: :etc:

The completely OC-centric epilogue will be up pretty quick after this one (like, probably instantly) because it's shamelessly self-indulgent and horrible, but for once I DON'T CARE, because I actually made it all the way to the end of a story for once! :dances about gleefully: Won't make any difference to the story here if you skip over it. ;)

* * *

"Hey hey, lookie what I found, Screamer," Skywarp greeted, as Starscream and Thundercracker finally touched down on the street, near the collapsed ground at the edge of the rift. Calibrator stood at his feet, expression smouldering, her wrists cuffed in front of her. "Want it?"

Starscream tried valiantly but couldn't _quite _hide his disappointment that Skywarp had beat him to the arrest. "Calibrator." He forced a smile. "How nice to see you again."

She glared half-heartedly at him, but continued to exercise her right to silence.

"Where's the pipeline?" Thundercracker wondered, curiously, glancing back over Skywarp's shoulder.

"He, um… 'fell' off the edge," Skywarp replied, with a little shrug, stepping to one side to allow Spotweld to pass. "The bottom's quite a long way down, you know. You happy to have her, anyway? I've, ah… got places to be." He swapped a glance with Thundercracker, who nodded. "See you two geeks back at base," he chirped, then abandoned Calibrator to the less-than-tender mercies of his wingmates, following the polymorph, who was carefully but easily navigating the margins of the broken ground.

Calibrator stared up at the two giants, and backed away an uneasy step or two. "Are you going to kill me?" she wondered, faintly, lifting her chin.

"Kill you? Why would I do that?"

The smile that had spread across the red Seeker's dark face made her primary pump go still in her chest.

"I plan on making you suffer for a _very_ long time," Starscream went on, softly. "And if my instincts are right, the idea of being drugged into a _complete, numb stupidity_ in a hospital for the criminally insane is the sum of all your very worst fears…"

She backed away another step, and bumped against Thundercracker. "You wouldn't."

"Are you trying to dare me?" Starscream smiled, lazily, and closed his fingers on her cuffed wrists, lifting her easily against himself. "I don't think you could get me that angry, and besides, I'm… how can I put it? Feeling vindictive."

She kicked her heels against him, irritably, but she might as well have been kicking a wall, for all the response she got.

"Let's go," he went on, engaging thrusters and making his graceful way into the air. "We don't want to keep that padded cell waiting, now, do we?"

0o0o0o0o0

Spotweld had made his way down the cliff-face with the alacrity of some sort of giant metal gecko, his broad feet grasping easily at the crumbled rock-faces, and was now half-in half-out of the landing stage, carefully shovelling dirt out of the way. He had already divided his arms, and was clinging to the remains of the door-frame with the rearmost pair while the foremost pair carefully sifted through the debris. Behind him, Skywarp clung precariously to the ledge, trying to peer closer at what was going on and not get dislodged by the mini landslide, but the polymorph's torso got mostly in the way.

"Well?" the teleport poked, after a breem had passed in silence.

"Well what?" Spotweld peered back at him, his green optics casting an eerie phosphorescent glow around the damaged chamber.

"Well, is she okay?"

The pinpoints of his optics vanished as the polymorph got back to work. "Still kinda buried, at the moment? Give me a bit longer…"

Skywarp fidgeted and had cleared his own debris-free perch by the time Spotweld finally looked back at him. "All right, I've got this lot shifted. Do you want to take her?" his voice filtered out of the wreckage.

"Ah, guess it'd make sense if I did," Skywarp accepted, genially. "We'll get back quicker, so she'll get fixed quicker, and I won't have to carry her about any more." He watched as the rest of Spotweld emerged from the ruins, and wrinkled his nose, critically. "How does she look, to you?" His medically-untrained optic said _what-a-freaking-MESS,_ but Spotweld didn't look too bothered as he carefully brought out the scuffed, slumping bundle of plating.

"Aside from the broken knee and missing antennae, she looks like she's burned out a couple of relays?" Spotweld replied, but his voice confirmed that he wasn't too concerned. "But she'll be fine, once we've replaced them? Sonic weapons are probably best left to those who know how to use them."

Skywarp pulled a face and nodded, sagely; Thundercracker was _the_ expert in sonic weaponry, all the way from his own _boom_ to sonic grenades, outclassing even Soundwave, and had on occasion taught both his wingmates painful lessons about just _why_ they shouldn't muck about with his supplies.

"I've briefed Forceps, and she's already waiting back in the station infirmary," Spotweld added, carefully setting Pulsar into Skywarp's arms. "It probably won't take very many breems to get her patched up?"

"That's good." Skywarp rearranged his grip a little bit, and activated his thrusters. "I'm getting kinda bored of being a taxi service."

"You love showing off, really," a strained little voice said, from down in his grasp, and he glanced down to meet a subdued, sleepy dark blue gaze. She looked weirdly lopsided, with that clump of grit-encrusted wires trailing down off one side of her head, but not too uncomfortable as they ascended. Probably too drowsy to kick up a fuss, he decided.

"Well, I'd never try to deny that I enjoy being _admired_…" he agreed, amusedly. "You all right for me to teleport?"

Her optics flickered, uneasily, but she nodded. "If it gets us back quicker."

"All right. Count of three, then?" He checked his triangulation, and his grip. "Three… two… one…"

There was the disorienting sensation of being in two places at once – although not so bad as last time, with her positioning antennae missing – and that weird rippling feeling of air moving _through_ her… When the feeling had faded and she dared to glance down, the station was already looming large in front.

"What is it with you and flinging yourself off great heights, anyway?" Skywarp wondered, gently, descending smoothly. "I'm sure you could think of a much better way of telling me you think I'm intolerable than destroying a building with yourself under it, you know."

Unable to think up a suitably witty retort, she just let her head relax against his shoulder.

"How did you manage to get so filthy, anyway?" he went on, touching down lightly. "You look like you've spent _weeks_ without a trip to the washracks. It can't have been _that _dirty, under the building."

"You said something a while ago about helping me polish your paintmarks out of my enamel," she mused, quietly, as he ambled up the front ramp. "Is the offer still open?"

He snerked his amusement. "I'll see if I have a slot in my diary."

0o0o0o0o0

Starscream and Thundercracker took a little longer to get back, but after delivering Calibrator to Hardline and Overhaul down in the cell-block they made their way down to the infirmary, where Skywarp sat obediently waiting and grumbling about how long they were taking.

Pulsar remained in a sleepy heap on the neighbouring berth, leg outstretched while Forceps worked on excising the damaged knee joint, snickering and watching while Skywarp sat with his face upturned and his mouth open, trying not to squirm as his wingmate fed the endoscope down his main intake to finally drain the accumulated Blue out of his tank.

"How much longer, Screamer?" the teleport asked, fidgeting his thrusters. His words came out strange and electronic without his lips to modify and soften them.

"Oh stop whining, you big sparkling," Starscream scolded, absently, watching the screen and guiding the tube into the tank. "Or I'll make you do this yourself."

"_Whining?!_ That's easy for _you_ to say, _you_ don't have a tube down your intakes! It's uncomfortable!"

"Well, we all have to make sacrifices…"

"Fragger."

"Look, if you don't stop whinging-… ah, there we go, got it." Starscream got the fluid moving, and dropped the free end of the tube into a drain. "Sit tight, Warp. Once this has all run out, you'll need a couple of rinses before I can remove the pouch, but that shouldn't take too long. Maybe a couple of breems."

"What?!" Skywarp lurched halfway to his feet, angrily. "I've got to sit here with this fragging thing in my intakes for _breems_?! You're doing it on purpose, now!"

"Sit _still_!" Starscream set a hand to his shoulder vent, and shoved him heavily back to his aft. "If you dislodge the tube you might end up getting Blue into the wrong tank and integrating it again. Get yourself addled again, and I'll make you wait until everyone else is clean before letting you use the Tank. Which'll only take, oh, I don't know, a few full solar rotations…"

Skywarp whined around the endoscope, but stopped wriggling. "So _mean_."

"Psh. Get Squeaky to play with your wings, that'll distract you until Screamer's done," Thundercracker suggested. "You'll never even realise how long you've been waiting."

Skywarp gave him the look of death, but quietened down.

On the next berth along, Pulsar sat with her lips pursed, trying not to smirk too obviously. "Am I going to be 'Squeaky' for the rest of my life?" she challenged, tiredly, and all three dark heads nodded their confirmation in unison.

Hardline appeared in the doorway a breem or two later, supposedly to check on the wounded and congratulate Skywarp, but any congratulations were readily forgotten at seeing the scene in the medical suite. "Do you two _like _it in here, or something?" the Chief Inspector wondered, amusedly, giving both Skywarp and Pulsar a look in turn.

"Do you _like_ having your nose still attached to your face?" Skywarp countered, earning himself another scolding from Starscream for splashing his rinse-water everywhere. "Because I'm happy to help you remove it, if you like."

Thundercracker leaned a little closer to Starscream, and said, in a stage whisper; "I'll bet you three orns' rations that the tank beats him so hard Warp's laid up for the rest of the solar cycle."

"Oh, come on. That is not a fair bet, and I am not taking it. Besides, I don't have that much energon to give you," Starscream replied, echoing the sentiment, and grinning rudely at Skywarp's miffed expression. "I don't even think Squeaks would take _that _bet."

Forceps was at the side of the room, poring over a schematic and studying her gamma-capture of Pulsar's internal damage, trying to work out how best to go about replacing the missing positioning antenna. Ensuring no-one was paying him too much attention, Hardline sidled up beside her.

Forceps only jumped very slightly as a set of large fingers threaded their way surreptitiously into her hand. "Um, Sepp…? How would you feel if I asked about us making another try of things?" a gruff voice wondered, hesitantly.

"I don't know, Hack." She didn't look up from her screen. "We couldn't get it to work last time, could we? It all ended up with too much politics getting in the way. Too many factions and taking sides. Why should this time be different?" She shook her head, but tightened her fingers on his, anyway. "I'm not sure I want to go through all that yelling, again."

"Does our faction – or lack thereof – matter, any more? We're on the same side."

She glanced sideways. "You can't honestly expect me to take up a faction after working alongside those three Seekers," she challenged, bluntly.

"No, and I'm not asking you to," he confirmed, and gathered her hand to his chest, making her automatically look towards the gesture.

…his broad torso was conspicuously badge-less. He still wore his police insignia, but the Autobot emblem that had previously sat alongside the police symbol was gone, replaced by a little patch of clean white paint. Her gaze softened. "…Hardline?"

"Having those Decepticons on the force for a while proved that being an Autobot isn't a pre-requisite for being a Police officer," he explained, humbly. "I can still do the job I was destined to do. The difference is, this time I can have someone to go home to. That is, if she'll forgive a big idiot like me, and take me back…?"

She actually smiled. "All right. We'll give 'us' another chance. Provided we start all the way from the beginning," she agreed, softly.

He touched his lips to the back of her fingers, and grinned, sheepishly.

Pulsar leaned off her table, trailing wires, and poked Skywarp in the wing. "I hope you're taking notes on how to be a gentlemech."

The tongue that pointed in her direction was all the answer she needed.

0o0o0o0o0

Boxer had unexpectedly given almost everyone the rest of the orn off work, taking over monitor duty himself. A certain clique of constables had used it as an excuse to push all the chairs and tables out of the way and turn the galley into a temporary nightclub, and the observation that some officers should arrest _themselves_ for their behaviour was levelled at them more than once from their slightly less inebriated colleagues.

Eventually the party drifted away, either to dorms to integrate (or burn off) some of the excess energy, or down to the town centre to continue the revelling until their credits ran out.

Thundercracker had shown considerable disinterest, and retired to the couch long before the galley began to filter itself empty. He'd even managed to slip into a doze, but then that was probably all that training in sonic weaponry coming to the fore and allowing him to tune out the racket of badly-tuned music.

The peace didn't last long, once the music stopped and (most of) the rabble left. "Urrrhhhnghghg…" Skywarp groaned, exaggeratedly, and settled onto the seat next to Thundercracker, slumping right _onto_ his wingmate and doing 'those' optics at him. "TC, I'm _knackered_."

Thundercracker gave him a long-suffering look, but for once lifted his arm out of the way and draped it back down around the teleport's shoulders. "All right, just this once," he grumbled, as Skywarp curled himself closer. "And if you so much as _think _about telling Ramjet, I'm gonna fragging _disown_ you."

"_Would_ I do such a thing?"

"Yes you would, now be quiet before I turf you off."

Skywarp smirked silently to himself, and wriggled his wings.

"Excuse me, sir, is this seat taken?" a familiar little voice asked, and Skywarp flickered one optic online to study his visitor.

"Hn," he grunted, and budged a fraction closer to Thundercracker. "All right. Come on then, Squeaky."

She tucked herself up in front of him, curling her feet up onto the seat, and felt him slump his arm back down across her… sneakily tucking his fingers down under her chest. She covered his fingers with her own.

"_-how's your knee?-_" came the whisper, right next to her audio.

"-_stiff, but it'll ease up in time,-_" she whispered back. "_-thanks-_"

"-_hn. Welcome-_"

By the time Starscream managed to tear himself away from conversation with an inebriated and very unsteady Celerity, Longbeam had settled herself at Thundercracker's feet, resting her head against one of his knees. The blue Seeker had half-heartedly tried to shoo her away without making it too rude or obvious, but she'd failed to take the hint and Thundercracker had finally given up trying when another of the little gravity-bikes plonked herself down on the other side.

"Hm. You're getting far too popular for your own good, TC," a voice drawled, and Thundercracker onlined a sleepy optic to find Starscream holding out a flask of energon for him.

"I can't help having a magnetic personality," the blue Seeker replied, accepting the flask. "You're only jealous."

Starscream just snerked wordlessly at first, and plonked his weight down on the couch on the opposite side to Skywarp, hooking his thrusters up onto the chair. "That _must_ be what it is. I'm jealous that you have Skywarp trying to burrow into your side, and your own mass in Policebots weighing your thrusters down," he agreed, dryly, then added; "Nice of you to finally turn up, as well, Sepp."

The surgeon shrugged with one shoulder. "I had business to attend," she replied, ambling over.

Skywarp gave her a critical look, then behind her at Hardline, then back at Forceps and flickered his gaze all the way down her, from her shoulders to her feet.

"What?" she growled, suspiciously.

"Oh, nothing," Skywarp replied, airily, shaking his head. "Just checking you for paint-transfers."

Forceps made a funny little incredulous noise and raised a palm to give him a swat around the audio, but Hardline caught the hand before it could swing. "He's only trying to get his own back," the tank replied, amusedly. "Since he's been walking around with yellow finger-marks all over his wings for the past orn and nobody told him."

Skywarp's optics flashed instantly brighter as he hastily checked his dark paint, and there were dirty sniggers from his assorted accomplices as he fell for the obvious trick.

"Come on, you lot, stop hogging the couch – and yes, I mean you too, Scarlet, you don't need your feet up on it. Budge up," Forceps instructed, and waved her hands in a shooing motion. There ensued more grumbling and jostling, but at last they'd shuffled along far enough to give the two new arrivals space to park.

Starscream arched a brow, and meaningfully stretched both legs back out across them. "Got you _both_ under my heels, now," he observed, dryly.

"Y'know, we're gonna have to take these stickers off, tomorrow," Skywarp reminded, dabbing a fingertip against the chequered piping on Thundercracker's wings. "Shocky'll never let us through the space-bridge if we're still in Auto-dork colours."

"You're not staying?" Hardline leaned forwards to see round the blue Seeker, and gave them a look that bordered strongly on deep disappointment.

"Tch, yeah, right, because we'd be _welcome_ to stay here, of course," Skywarp snorted.

The tank gave an unexpected shrug. "I wouldn't mind having you three on my team," he admitted, gruffly. "Frag, if it came down to it, I don't even think I'd mind if one of you was my Superintendent."

"By 'one of us', you mean, Screamer, of course," Skywarp quipped, amusedly. "If you could pry him out of the forensics lab. I can't see myself in any position of particular power."

"Chief Inspector Skywarp," Thundercracker suggested, and there was a ripple of impolite, impertinent laughter. "Primus, can you imagine the _chaos_?"

"Oh, psh," Skywarp didn't even bother to online his optics, as if to illustrate what he thought of Thundercracker's teasing. "I'll have you sent to solitary for insubordination in a minute, _constable_."

Hoots of derisive laughter greeted the comment, and even Boxer chuckled quietly from the doorway.

"More seriously," Starscream added, sombrely, once the humour had faded again, watching for the superintendent's response, "how long do you think it will be before people start to remember exactly _what_ and _who _we are? We've had a common enemy thus far, but now Blue is gone, how long before we begin to revert back to the familiar old Decepticon/Autobot divisions?"

"You think it's likely?" Hardline challenged.

"I think it should be taken as a given." Starscream nodded. "One of you will annoy one of us, and former factions will be brought up in the argument, and experience tells me it'll probably escalate into something more serious than just words."

"For the sake of a technicality," Thundercracker added, sleepily, "according to you lot, we're _also _still war criminals."

The silence was uncomfortable.

"Well, speaking only for myself, of course…" Boxer said, carefully, slowly pouring himself a flask of what little remained of the energon, and everyone waited for the anticipated '_I think it's for the best you leave, too_'. "I would personally be prepared to try and cancel any outstanding debts if you wanted to join the ranks here. We could do with your skill mix, and you've, ah… pleasantly surprised everyone with your effectiveness."

Even Skywarp onlined his optics in surprise, at that.

"I cannot deny that you very much shook the place up," the superintendent admitted. "I don't think I've seen my officers quite so, ah… _animated_… in vorns. Certainly more enthusiastic. Excited. Dedicated to getting things done. And not only I would be lying if I said I was relieved you feel obliged to leave, I don't think I would be the only one to express that sentiment."

The movement was sneaky, and not particularly obvious, but meaningful enough; Forceps shifted her hand to weigh a little more meaningfully against Starscream's ankle, and Pulsar flexed her grip a little tighter onto Skywarp's fingers. Even Longbeam slid herself a fraction closer.

"I hope you'll at least consider it, before you leave, if you're set on going," Boxer added, softly, inclining his heavy head. "And if you do choose to go, well… the offer will remain on the table."

0o0o0o0o0

Pulsar followed Skywarp back to the dormitory block, melancholically, once everyone had finally got tired of sharing the couch. "You're set on going, then." It was a statement of fact, not a question.

The teleport glanced back at her, and shrugged. "We've still got unfinished business to attend to, back home," he confirmed.

"That stupid Decepticon agenda," she sniped, folding her arms.

"No-one's stopping you coming along, if you want, Squeaky."

"So you can keep me in a cupboard somewhere, and try to keep things a secret from Megatron? Puh."

"Hey, guess what?" He grinned. "If you sulk, it means _I win_."

"I don't know why I bother, sometimes." She scowled at him, bitterly, then – impulsively – leaned closer, and planted a kiss on his cheek. "There. Something to remember me by, if you won't stay."

"Something to remember you by?" His little smile quirked into a sly grin and he caught her around the shoulders. "Come on, we can do better than _that_."

She never got the chance to ask him what he meant before he teleported the pair of them away.

0o0o0o0o0

The five Earth-based machines made their departure from the station very early the next morning, to avoid as many awkward questions about why weren't they staying as possible. Skywarp had something of an unsteady gait and a drunken grin on his face, which no-one wanted to question him too heavily about, but the bright paint transfers he hadn't quite succeeded in fully polishing out probably explained all anyone needed to know. Forceps declined to say goodbye, citing it as "too final", but everyone knew she just didn't want to be caught falling prey to her emotions. Hardline said goodbye on her behalf, and escorted the five most of the way to the space-bridge before pressing a police-band communicator into Starscream's palm, 'just in case the three of them ever changed their minds', and taking his own leave of them.

"So." Prowl cast a glance very briefly up at Shockwave's armoured base of operations before looking back at Starscream. "What now? Because if it had escaped your notice, we're still Autobots, and we're still not on friendly terms with Shockwave, and we've _some_how got to get onto the space-bridge."

"No worries about that. We'll get you through without a scratch on your paintwork," Starscream replied, amusedly, but his pale optics glittered earnestly and confirmed his good intentions. "You're our 'prisoners' until we're safely through the space bridge. After that, where you go is up to you."

There were nods of agreement from the other two Seekers.

"How long before you turn and shoot us in the back?" Jazz wondered, head cocked.

"Oh honestly. Is your opinion of us that low?" Starscream scoffed, and planted a hand to his chest, as if wounded right in his spark, then smirked. "Half a breem. If you're not gone, expect a friendly bit of laser fire to remind you."

"Wouldn't expect anything less," Jazz grinned, and gave his former-enemy-turned-ally-soon-to-turn-enemy-again a friendly slap on the back, while he still could without getting shot. "C'mon, Prowler."

"Wait, what? We're just going to march in there?! We'll get _fried_!" Skywarp complained, grimly, making no effort to follow just yet.

Starscream gazed up at the doors. "Oh, I don't think so," he demurred, calmly, already setting off, Jazz and Prowl in front. "Shockwave has eyes everywhere, correct? I'm sure he's been watching us…"

Skywarp gave Thundercracker a pleading look.

"Come on," the blue Seeker gave him a little prod. "I don't much like it either, but we best get it over with."

Skywarp pulled a face, but squared up his shoulders, affected his best holier-than-thou sneer, and fell into formation. "I don't care how good we _look_, we're _still_ going to get shot at, I _know_ it."

The one-mech reception committee did not greet them with gunfire, however – Shockwave actually _bowed_ to them. "Welcome back, Air Commander Starscream, Commander Skywarp, Commander Thundercracker," he greeted, almost obsequiously. "Mighty Megatron wishes me to inform you that he has observed your progress and is most pleased with your results. It is most reassuring to observe that you continue to recognise your true calling."

"I thought he might be." Starscream smirked at his wingmates; they hid it well, but their commander could see it. Under the sneers, both looked about ready to collapse in relief. "Is the space-bridge ready? We have prisoners to take back for questioning."

Shockwave nodded his head just the once, and flickered his single optic. "An escort is en route. You will wait at the space-bridge until your reinforcements arrive," he instructed.

"Come on, you filthy Autobots," Skywarp snarled, giving Prowl a jab in the back. "Get a move on."

Prowl jerked his hands up to shoulder level and got a move on, as he'd been told, although he glared at Skywarp the instant the bridge doors had closed.

"What?" Skywarp affected his best innocent face. "It's only for effect. Don't want Shockwave getting suspicious."

"You could _try_ not to enjoy it quite so much."

"Well, yeah, I could probably _try_, but where's the fun in that…?"

The same bored silver ground-pounder was _still_ on duty on the Earth side, when they arrived back (it was growing less clear whether he was here as a punishment, or had asked for the post to increase his time for goofing off), although – surprisingly – he actually got up and saluted, instead of remaining flaked out and snoring. The three Seekers deliberately turned their backs on their prisoners, taking their very old argument back up with him.

"That looks like our cue to make our departure," Prowl commented, softly, surveying the three sets of wings. "You ready to make a run for it, before the reinforcements arrive?"

"I'm not so sure I want to get 'em in trouble, for once," Jazz griped, morosely. "I figure we better do as told, though." He edged away, after Prowl, trying to put as many boulders between them and the distracted air-elite as possible.

"Hey!" Skywarp's yell pierced the calm. "Hey, you filthy Autobots, stop right where you are!" A fine, thin lilac streak strafed past his audio, that 'surgical precision' apparently forgotten (or was it a 'precise miss'? It had been unnervingly close!). _-Get a damn MOVE ON_- the teleport pinged, silently.

Noble ideals got cast to the winds. The two Autobots hastily transformed, and fled, hotly 'pursued' by the three Seekers, a hail of ultra-precise misses raining down around them until the Aerialbots came to the "rescue", and the Seekers wheeled about and gunned it for the horizon before the other fliers could get a lock on them.

0o0o0o0o0

Back in the _Ark, _behind his large desk, Optimus stared silently down at the little snapshot Prowl had handed him for so long that Jazz began to wonder if they hadn't broken his brain. This did not bode well. They hadn't even finished their debriefing.

"Um, Optimus?" Jazz waved a hand, and finally the big mech lifted his gaze and matched stares with him. "Everything all right?"

"Tell me something, Jazz," Optimus suggested, tiredly, leaning his head onto one hand and using the other to wave the still. "This image. Humans would say it's been, ah… 'Photoshopped'. That is, faked. Set up. Is that what you did?"

"What? Aw, come on, Optimus. When would we have had time to do that?" Jazz complained. "We only just got back!"

"I took that photograph myself," Prowl added. "Because I knew no-one would believe us. Maybe I should have just not bothered."

"Let me see?" Ratchet peered over Optimus' shoulder, and the Autobot leader reluctantly relinquished the photograph to the crimson fingers that had closed on the top corner. "Oh, goodness. That can't be right!"

The array of wings apparently hadn't become a barrier to all cramming onto the same long couch in the station break room. Thundercracker was just off centre, with so many bodies clustered around him that getting up would have probably dislodged _everyone_ in the scene. Skywarp was on his right, actually _snuggling_ against his side, his wing-mate's arm draping tiredly down over his shoulders, and a little gravity cycle was in turn flaked out against the teleport, her cheek on his cockpit, looking like she belonged there. Starscream was on Thundercracker's left, leaning back against him, head resting against one blue shoulder and Thundercracker's spare arm around him. Starscream looked like he'd originally had his legs tucked up on the seat, but two additional machines – one big pale-green femme, and one absolute _giant_ of a mech – had squeezed onto the end, and so the blue thrusters were instead stretched out across their laps. On the floor was a big orange male protoform, with sleek twin femme hovercars on either side using him as a support, and an assortment of smaller officers had ranged themselves along the floor, leaning back against the couch – Thundercracker had acquired quite the fan-club, if the three femmes around his legs were anything to go by. Small, empty energon containers and brushed silver flasks littered the floor. And everyone was deep in recharge. A more peaceful scene containing the Decepticon air elite would have been hard to come by.

"All right. My brain already hurts from all the mental gymnastics you're expecting me to do, so let's see if I've got this right," Optimus suggested, slowly, listening to the twittering voices as Ratchet lost control of the photograph to Sideswipe and it got passed around the entire peanut gallery. "The white Seeker who we were getting worried about? Was Starscream all along?"

"That's right," Jazz bobbed his head. "He still had the blue optics in when we met up with them."

"And your picture is one-hundred-percent the-real-thing in-no-way-altered honest?"

"Absolutely one-hundred-percent correct. It didn't even go _near_ a photo shop."

"And not only was this… 'Blue' stuff… nothing to do with the Decepticons, they actually helped the police remove it from the streets and destroy the production facility?"

"Yes, Prime," Prowl confirmed. "They, ah… had something of a strange effect on the whole police force, to be honest. I'd never have guessed it'd be such an efficacious partnership, at the beginning."

"Is an elaboration of exactly _what _strange effect they had out of the question?"

Prowl's optics flickered and he glanced sidelong, as if wishing he could have avoided the question. "We lost a significant number of formerly-loyal Autobots because of it." Seeing Optimus straighten in horror, he was quick to add; "Not to the Decepticons! And not dead, either. Just… a lot dropped their allegiance and went Neutral, including one or two fairly high-ranking officers." He decided it would only complicate matters if Optimus got wind of the job offers that Superintendent Boxer had laid on the table.

Optimus groaned, quietly, and rubbed the bridge of his nose, then rose to his feet and pushed carefully through the crowd of Autobots still giggling nervously over the photograph.

"Optimus? Where are you going?" Jazz watched him move out through the door, and into the corridor.

"I'm going to try something the humans do," Optimus replied, tiredly, glancing back at him. "If I go back to bed, I may be able to wake up and find it has all just been a strange dream…"

0o0o0o0o0

Back on _Nemesis_, a quiet, _wary_ sort of normality had resumed.

Skywarp had been making an incredible effort to avoid Megatron at all costs, just in case the tyrant had caught wind of his affair, and had so far not been challenged about it the one or two times they'd run into each other in corridors, but he wasn't being complacent about it, and knew there were suspicions forming because Soundwave kept giving him funny looks. (Well, as funny a look as Soundwave was physically capable of.)

As for Starscream, there were already a few new dents in Forceps' sleek handiwork, but this time the source was more familiar. In spite of being pleased at their work on Cybertron, Megatron had been _less_ than pleased when they let the two important Autobots make their escape. As always, reprimand had turned into insult and then into a fight which Starscream had lost. Most had agreed it had been done mostly for effect, though – the fusion cannon and null-rays had remained offline.

Starscream had one last little bit of vengeance to exact, however. Vengeance for being forced to flee to Cybertron in the first place. Vengeance for being shamed – without good reason – in front of his peers. Vengeance for being _punished_ for doing _good work_.

He held his hand up in front of his face, comfortable crimson optics finally back in place, and studied the innocent little violet-blue cube of pure ruin where it sat on his palm. A smirk discoloured his urbane features. He knew _exactly_ the right place to leave this.

…Oh _boy_, did Megatron ever have it coming to him.


	35. Epilogue

**Screaming Blue Murder - ****Epilogue**

**Disclaimer:** As ever, author neither claims nor intentionally implies ownership of the 'Transformers' brand, or any character or concept herein, who are copyright 1984-present Hasbro/etc and used with much love and respect to their creators. (...Except where they're obviously OCs, which Hasbro would be silly to want to claim.)

**A/N:**I should probably apologise for this last bit, as it's only got my OCs in it, and stuff, but you know what? I'm not gonna. :) It's all shamelessly self-indulgent and horrible and I had great fun being blatant and fangirly with it. So…

:neener!:

* * *

It was another peaceful evening, and Forceps had (once again) drifted into a sort of reminiscing recharge in front of the news. It was a good hundred orns down the line, and the strange post-Blue peace had continued to reign in the district.

The three Decepticons had had a strangely invigorating effect on the area, and – although she recognised it was quite possibly as far from Cali's plans as possible – Blue _had_ brought the citizens together. There was even a small program of urban renewal going on, right now. Empties were managing to get work as builders, and the grotty abandoned old tower block in front of the District General had been restored to health – not _quite_ to its former shining glory, but it was certainly clean and inhabited again, and covered in solar panels and wind generators to relieve the already-stretched city area grid.

The police had remained invigorated and refreshed, as well, and even managing to recruit enough new officers to separate into two new branches. Celerity (and her twin, Vector) had taken the ranks of Chief Inspector and moved out to take charge of the new branch; they'd both had refits, and gone from small sleek hovercars to large armoured trucks that could probably have given Superintendent Hardline a run for his money. District Commissioner Boxer was quite happy to let them do their own thing; they ruled their side of town with a velvet glove, and trouble was happily kept to a minimum.

Being shot down and mauled by Deuce had left Nightsun strangely leery of flying, but after a little surgery (and more than a little therapy), the gallant sergeant was back on duty, and at long last finally daring to get back into the air. Constable Whitesides had managed – with a little grovelling and a _lot_ of work – to keep his post, and vindicate his name, although he had become rather more wary, rather less arrogant.

Pulsar had surprised everyone by _keeping _her Autobot badges intact. Her affair was hardly a secret, any more, and everyone had guessed she'd at very least drop her allegiance, if not outright defect to the other side, but that apparently wasn't on the cards. She made it a point of pride that she'd dallied with a Decepticon _and_ kept her principles mostly intact. She'd thrown herself at the rulebook and actually knuckled down for a promotion – passed her exams with excellent grades and accepted the rank of sergeant at the small, subsidiary station that had opened on the quayside, in a renovated old warehouse…

The one thing she'd still not _quite_ succeeded at convincing everyone was that she didn't _miss _the teleport. She would happily elaborate about how he'd just been a passing interest, just a blip on her radar, and she was contentedly over him, but every now and then she'd sabotage herself. There'd be the distant sound of engines from a passing shuttle, and she'd have turned her face expectantly in the direction of the sound before she could catch herself. The expression that usually followed was one of wistful disappointment, and there'd be another raft of assertions that it didn't mean anything, it would just have been nice to see him again. She knew no-one believed her, but it didn't hurt to maintain face.

Spotweld had taken the unprecedented step of joining the Police – he still worked just as hard as ever, and still had his duty shift in Accident and Emergency, but since the station medic had accompanied Celerity's team to the new base on the docks, a new post had opened up. It was odd, seeing him in the silver, blue and yellow livery of the police force, rather than his old orange, but he was surer of himself and less prone to that odd questioning influence to his speech, and seemed to like the respect he got from it.

And as for Hardline… well, they'd not taken that final step of actually moving in together, but they were seeing a lot more eye-to-eye, at last. She herself was finding it far, _far_ easier to just… _switch off_ after work, again, and not spend all evening with her brain still full of worries. He spent several evenings in every ten orn period with her, his new rank affording him more time for himself (even if it did come with more paperwork), and he often camped out in the lounge overnight instead of traipse all the way back to his quarters at the station. He wasn't due to finish his shift for another cycle or two, and Forceps was quite happy to just doze while she waited for him to return 'home'.

The doorbell disturbed her from her daydreams – it was ringing fairly incessantly, as if someone were determined to get through the wall via the little keypad.

"All right, all right! I'm on my way, calm down!" she boomed, from the opposite side of the room, levering herself irascibly out of her chair. The bell paused, for all of an astro-second or two, but soon resumed its urgent jangling. "Ringing the bell _more_ won't get me there _any quicker_, for goodness sake...!"

Out on her doorstep, Pulsar was clinging to the rail around the outside of the porch, almost on her knees, sucking big frantic draughts of cold night-time air through her vents and struggling vainly to cool her insides, but the heat still shimmered up off her. Judging by the contortions her face was going through, she was in no small amount of pain.

"Pulse? What in Primus' name has got you so worked up?" Forceps sank to one knee beside her, put out her hands; Pulsar latched onto her, like a drowning sailor clinging for a lifeline. "I _was_ going to congratulate you on the promotion, next time I saw you, but I imagine that can wait!" she observed, dryly, gathering her friend up off the front porch and helping her inside. "What's got you in such a state, eh?"

Pulsar clutched for her and shook her head, temporarily voiceless, deep, grinding semi-sobs of static keeping her from speaking. Her bandy legs would barely support her weight.

"All right, all right, easy now," the big surgeon soothed, settling her friend onto a chair and trying to get down to the kernel of good sense that she knew was in there, somewhere. There should be an old coolant mantle around here in one of the cupboards, if only she could find it… "Just take a second or two to calm down-"

"What's hap-happening to me?" Pulsar gasped the words out between great wracking whoops of pain. It felt like someone was taking an angle-grinder to her spark casing. "Sepp, am I-… am I dying? _Primus_, it hurts so much-…!" She watched through blurring optics as Forceps extracted a heavy folded lump of polymer out of a cupboard and shook it open, revealing a broad poncho-like device and a series of tubes.

"_Dying_? Primus, no, quite the opposite," Forceps reassured, carefully setting the refrigerant mantle down so that it nestled around her friend's shoulders, and tweaking the coolant supply on. The high, thin stink of volatile liquids filled the air, and a roiling mist of twinkling, icy fog gushed out of the margins of the polymer. "I'm no specialist in the discipline, but it sounds to me like you've got some fission going on in there. I hope your new post is going to be flexible enough to allow you plenty of time at home!"

"What? What does that mm-… _auuugh_, Sepp-!" It was hard to think that anything could possibly be happening other than her spark casing shattering. Nothing could hurt this much if it wasn't doing _damage_… She arched her back against the chair, keening thinly. "-…make it stop!"

"Steady, Pulse," Forceps prodded, sternly, and got no response. "Come on, stay with me. Pulsar? _Sergeant_!"

That finally got her attention. "Wh-what?" She squirmed helplessly and tried to resist the urge to kick out, clawing her fingers into the chair, not _quite_ succeeding in straightening out the dramatic curve in her back.

"Sit calm, and let the refrigerant start to get to work. You've given yourself a high resistance because you've got hot and flustered, and that's giving you feedback. The pressure in your spark chamber will begin to ease once you start to cool down. All right?"

Pulsar gave a single convulsive nod, clutching with both hands at her friend's arms and pedalling her feet, feebly. The urge to curl up around the pain and let it force her offline altogether was growing more and more tempting.

"Now, have you been getting any other symptoms?"

"Aside from feeling like someone's taking a screwdriver to my spark cas_aaAH_, Sepp, give me something-!" She jerked her knees up, trying to curl up.

Forceps sighed and altered the fans, lowered the temperature again. Frost had already begun to form on her friend's arms, she'd have to be careful not to freeze up her peripheral energon lines altogether. Snapping frozen fuel lines would only complicate things! "You've probably got some components close to being red hot in your core, you can't expect instant relief. You're already getting all you need, just give it a little time to start to cool you down," she instructed. "Now. Other symptoms? Twinges, minor faults, loss of balance…?"

"Well, yes-… twinges, yes!" Pulsar squirmed and tried to do as she'd been told, concentrated on drawing the refrigerant through her vents. The chill _was _taking the edge off it… "But only little ones, nothing like this! Nothing that makes me feel like I'm tearing to pieces-…"

"And you didn't think to question why you were getting them?" Forceps held her down, gently, ensuring she didn't worm her way out from under the refrigerant.

"I thought I was just working too hard," the Policebot groaned, miserably. "Over-exerting myself since my promotion…"

"Well, that's probably an understandable mistake," Forceps admitted, tiredly, and added, teasingly, "You've probably not worked so hard in your life, have you?"

"Oh, ha ha." The deep whooping sobs had at least begun to ease – the cold was obviously having the desired effect – and she'd stopped struggling quite so violently.

"There we go, see? Getting better?" Forceps prompted, gently, finally releasing her friend's arms.

Pulsar nodded, just once. "Getting better," she admitted, reluctantly. "So what-… what have I broken, Sepp? Will you be able to fix it?"

"What have you _broken_?" The surgeon frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You said something about fission. That means dividing, right?" Pulsar gave her a pleading look. "So what have I broken? Please, if it's irreparable-… I just want to know!"

Forceps just stared at her for a second, lips slightly parted in dismay. "…you've not heard the terminology before?" she asked, finally finding her vocaliser.

Pulsar shook her head. "Apparently not the way you know it," she confirmed, feebly.

"Well, uh, let me think how best to word it. It's not damage, it doesn't mean you broke anything, but, ah… Well, how close did you actually _get_ to Skywarp?"

Something like realisation was dawning in the pale azure optics. "I never took you for someone interested in _gossip_, Forceps," the small femme scolded, trying to avoid the question.

"From a medical point of view, Pulse. Just to confirm what I'm already pretty certain of."

Pulsar let her gaze drop, hunched her shoulders and fidgeted her feet. "We only did it once," she defended herself. "…euhm, or-… or maybe… twice, or something. That doesn't mean anything!"

"But you did share sparks?"

Pulsar felt her optics glowing a much brighter embarrassed shade of pale blue, and nodded, very very slightly.

"…and all through this, you never stopped to consider exactly _what _it was you were doing?" Forceps rolled her optics, exaggeratedly, and gave her an gentle, affectionate whack around the audio, before glancing up at a worried, drowsy Spotweld framed in the doorway. He looked like he'd been disturbed out of recharge by the ruckus. "Spots, I think we better get that old spark monitor out. I want to see exactly what we're looking at. After that, we're going to have to get the appropriate measures in place at the District General. New casings, in particular-"

"Are you telling me," Pulsar interrupted, very slowly, very carefully, "that I'm… that I… have…"

"Yes. Once Spotweld's brought the monitor I can confirm it, but I'm almost certain you two careless idiots have generated the essential harmonic for a sparkling."

Pulsar just stared, opening and closing her mouth, no words emerging. _Sparkling?_ she mouthed, as Spotweld hunkered down at her side with a clunky old monitor clutched in his long fingers.

"Arm up?" Spotweld suggested, gently, and once her limb was out of the way he carefully set the monitor close to the slightly thinner armour on the side of her chest. "Okay, that's good – hold your position a moment? Little tingling sensation… and… good, good, I'm getting a good read off you… Oh my, that's-… Sepp?" He crooked a spidery finger, and then pointed delicately at the screen. "Does that look like… you know… to you?"

She peered over his shoulder, then arched a brow. "Oh, yes, that's _very_ clear," she said, surprised. "It's not even the excess heat interfering with the reading."

"What? What is it, what's wrong?" Pulsar leaned closer, trying to see over the top of the little viewer.

"Wrong? Nothing's _wrong_, as such, just… unusual!" Forceps dabbed at a couple of buttons, then turned the screen so it faced the anxious policewoman. "Here we go, Pulse. Might explain why it was quite so painful."

Pulsar gazed down at the screen for several barely-comprehending moments. "I don't understand it," she lied, hoping that the surgeon would correct what she frantically hoped was a misinterpretation. There were three computer animations on the small viewer, twisting like fiery electronic sprites; one was a large, strong, vivid blue that she recognised instantly as her own harmonic. On either side, however, were two much smaller signatures – one a very slightly greenish blue, the other distinctly violet.

"You are carrying three resonances," Forceps explained, delicately, relinquishing her hold to the anxious fingers that clutched at the reader to get a better view. "One is your own. The other two belong to your twins."

Twins. _Twins_. _Primus! TWO of them!_ It must have been tempting fate to think it couldn't get any worse, because now it _had_…!

"But I didn't want-… it wasn't supposed-…" She struggled over the words. Now the shock had faded, the panic had begun to creep back in. "How did this… it's not supposed to happen like this!" She pulled deeply on the refrigerated air rolling over her shoulders, trying to stave off another attack. "Supposed to be done in a controlled environment-… consenting partners who know the risks! Who know what to _do_…!" The last word tailed off in another of those gulping wails. "Primus! Sepp, I can't be-… I don't know the _first thing_ about-"

"Cold, remember?" Forceps interrupted, sternly. "Don't overheat yourself again."

"Easy for you to say-!" She could feel the pressure increasing – a dull throbbing beat inside her spark. "_I'm not ready for sparklings_! I can't-… I _can't_… Oh Sepp you've got to help me get rid of them-!"

Forceps gave her a stern, surprised look. "_Get rid of them_?" she echoed, disbelievingly. "You _know_ we've not seen healthy sparklings in this district for _far_ too long… I can't help you just _kill _them-"

"Well if you want them that much, _you _have them!" Pulsar groaned, feeling her stressed core temperature going back up. "I can't have them! I can't! Sepp, you _know_ I'm going to be no good as a mother-" She squirmed her shoulders against the chair, trying hard to be good and follow her doctor's instructions but the thudding pressure in her spark chamber was starting to hurt again, even with the cold air. "I don't have the time or the space or-or _anything_! Can't you help me get them adopted? There's plenty of pairs out there who'd take them in, I know it…!"

"Now now, let's not get ahead of ourselves, here-"

"But I've never thought about sparklings! Not even _once_!" the smaller female pleaded. "I never wanted offspring _before_, and I don't want them _now_! I don't know what they should look like, I don't know what attributes they should have, I don't even know what _gender _they should be-! A-and it's all things I should know! Things I should have decided before-… before… oh, Primus, Sepp, I can't look after sparklings! I don't know _any of it-_…"

"Well, why _should _you know?" Forceps settled on the chair beside her, facing her shaken friend. "Pulse, the era in which we grew up, the era you're thinking of, is long gone. Back then, pairs _had _the luxury of time. It was _safe _to spend vorns designing their offspring down to the very last degree, all the way down to the last speck of enamel, the processing power of their cortex, the length of their fingers…!" she sighed, tersely. "Those days are gone, and they're not going to come back any time soon, not while our world remains so close to the edge of outright war again."

"See, _see_?" Pulsar seized upon the observation. "I shouldn't be bringing such tiny, defenceless individuals into the world when it's not safe! I can't look after them, Sepp, I _can't_-…! I'm _single_, I can't look after _one_, let alone _twins_…" She clutched her hands over her head. "I live in a freaking _dormitory_, I have a single bunk to myself and that's about it…!"

"All right. Look. Pulsar," Forceps gave her the sternest look she could manage. "Ignore the logistics. Ignore the _how_s and the _what_s. You only have two options in this. One is to carry on like this, deny everything, pretend it didn't happen and doesn't exist, and end up killing them and probably yourself in the process. The other is to shake yourself down, take control of your own destiny, and make the best of a bad situation. You didn't want them, fair enough, I get the picture. But accidents happen, and you won't turn the clock back by _wishing_."

Pulsar shrank back, anxious. "But I don't know if I _can_ do this," she said, faintly. "The logistics of it alone sound like dabbling in the Pit. I don't know what to do, how to care for them, how to teach them, where I'll even keep them-… And I can hardly ask for help from their sire! He's a _Decepticon-_"

"That didn't seem to matter to you when you were sharing your sparks," Forceps scolded, amusedly, watching as Spotweld guided a flask of filtered energon into his friend's pale hands. "Perhaps you should have thought about that back then."

"That wasn't – thank you, Spots – that wasn't what I meant," Pulsar looked away, reluctantly. "I mean-… I can hardly take them to visit him, let alone share responsibility for looking after them! And what am I going to tell them? When they ask who he is? _Where _he is?"

"Tell them the truth," Forceps smiled, sympathetically. "When they're old enough to ask, and to understand."

"But what if they want to _see_ him…?"

"Just… stop tormenting yourself with _ifs_ and _buts_. When the time comes to decide, then decide. Until then, stop agonising over it! The way things are going, at the moment, circumstances will probably have changed by the time you have to make these sorts of drastic decisions. And until then, you know we'll help you, if you want it. No-one's going to expect you to go it completely alone." She covered her friend's small hand with her own large one, and felt her trembling very slightly. "All right?"

Pulsar managed to meet her gaze, and took a mouthful of her energon. "All right," she agreed, faintly, and drew another long, stabilising gust of icy air through her system. Forceps was right, as usual; the shock had driven every sane thought from her silly head, and it took the surgeon's occasionally-sledgehammer style to knock a bit of sense back in. "Just… tell me. Is it safe?" she wondered, quietly, touching her fingertips to her chest, just above her spark chamber. "To keep them in here, for now?"

"Safest place for them!" Forceps agreed. "Especially while blank protoforms are in such short supply. But not forever. Not for more than a hundred orns, or so. They'll continue to develop inside you, and you'll start to get disharmonies as your resonances tangle – maybe even feelings that aren't your own as they get stronger, because one spark casing is as good as another, even if it's already occupied." She gave the smaller femme a hard look. "I know what you're thinking, and no. You can't put it off and defer the decision to someone else forever. If you leave it _too_ long, the pressure will either force the three sparks back into a single entity – and no, that _won't_ be you, but someone completely different, and probably a little psychotic – or else all three will destabilise and lose internal cohesion."

Pulsar winced, imagining it. The initial fission had hurt bad enough…! _Dying_ because one's pressure was too high would be an excruciating way to go. "I don't want to have to choose," she husked, quietly, and nursed her flask, studying the small layer of bright fuel inside. "I don't even want to think about it. But if they've got to come out…"

Forceps patted the white knee. "I'll see about sourcing some casings for you. I'm sure we'll have some suitable ones at the hospital," she promised. "You might have to end up going for spare parts, to build the rest of the protoform from the ground up for them, but you've got plenty of time to decide how you want to do it, once they're safely in their own housings."

A look of dismay flashed across the dark face. "…_me_? But-… I'm no doctor, Sepp! I'm nowhere _near_ clever enough, I-I can't build whole protoforms, I wouldn't know where to _start-_"

"I never said you had to do it by yourself," Forceps interrupted. "Just that you'll need to tell me how you want me to proceed."

"How will I know when is the best time to get them out…?" Golden fingertips ran over the image on the monitor, contemplatively, as if caressing the actual sparks and not just the illustrations, and Pulsar imagined feeling a responding _flicker _from somewhere deep in her crowded laser core. Her chest still felt tight, and constricted, but it was a different kind of heaviness, now. Almost… comforting. A comparative calm had descended upon her, now the pain had eased and the fear had begun to dissolve away. Maybe this wasn't such a terrible thing, after all.

"Oh, don't you worry. They'll let you know."

Spotweld's cunning little bit of sedative-laced energon didn't take long to coax the gravity-cycle back into recharge, and she didn't respond when Forceps carefully removed the coolant mantle, replacing it with a fine temperature-regulating blanket and setting a charging hookup into the appropriate place at the back of her neck. The surgeon was still lost in her own tired thoughts when two strong white arms snaked around her waist, and a deep, thunderous voice purred its _good-evening_s into her audio.

"Hello, Hack. I was beginning to think you'd got sucked into a black hole," Forceps replied, tiredly, dabbing her fingers down on his broad nose.

Hardline purred wordlessly for a moment, just happy to be 'home', then quirked his head to one side, curiously, finding one of his juniors curled up on the couch. "Let me guess," he quipped, gently. "You're trying to turn the place into a commune."

Forceps leaned her head back, and sighed, feeling him rest his chin on her shoulder. "If only it were that simple…!"


End file.
